COO: Post-Acute Network and Discharge Coordination

Post-acute coordination remains one of the highest-leverage operational levers a COO controls — directly shaping length of stay, readmission penalties, and bed availability for incoming admissions. Recent developments in AI-enabled palliative identification, hospital-at-home scaling, and chronic disease remote monitoring are reshaping what a high-performing post-acute network looks like in 2026, with implications that go well beyond traditional SNF preferred-provider strategies.