Monthly Archives: June 2020

Remote Patient Monitoring helps achieve Healthcare’s Triple Aim

What is Triple Aim?

Triple Aim is a framework developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement that describes an approach to optimizing health system performance.

Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction)
Improving the health of the populations
Reducing the per capita cost of health care

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has emphasized the significance of achieving the “Triple Aim” objectives. Therefore, the entire healthcare industry is working to harness the Triple Aim concept to enhance overall outcomes.

Achieving the Triple Aim goals is quite challenging. Improving access to care is one of the prime drivers in achieving Triple Aim, which fundamentally helps improve patient experience of care, treatment outcomes of the population and reduce the per capita cost.

Aging Baby Boomers Drain Financial Systems

There are roughly 77 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. (born between 1946 and 1964). Of that group, about 10,000 are reaching age 65 every single day, and that trend is expected to continue into the 2030s.

It is a fact that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) cannot afford this increased cost of medical care for this large aging population. The new payment model i.e. the shift from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement is intended to inspire and reward for providing quality care across the care continuum at a reduced cost. This also helps improve patient health outcomes, patient experience, and reduce readmission rates.

How Does Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) help in Achieving Triple Aim?

Today, to treat patients remotely healthcare organizations are getting the entire patient data into their systems to get them in front of their physicians and specialists. Innovations and improvements in healthcare technology have allowed patients to survive diseases and get immediate medical attention when most needed. Remote Patient Monitoring is one of the solutions that play a crucial role in helping the baby boomers population, and help healthcare providers to get closer to attaining Triple Aim.

Remote patient monitoring can help providers in value-based repayments through a proactive focus on disease prevention, early involvement, care management, chronic care management, and patient monitoring. This optimized management of care to a greater extent has helped the manner in which physicians provide care and how patients manage their own health.

Improves Patient Experience

Remote patient monitoring along with other Telehealth solutions allow patients to get involved in their treatment by monitoring/updating their vitals, following care plans, diet, etc. This improves patients’ self-awareness of their medical condition and also helps them connect with their provider when needed. The care model allows patients to engage in their care on a day-to-day basis and drives patient adherence, self-involvement, and better health outcomes which means improved patient experience.

Improves Population Health

At times, elderly patients in rural/remote areas find it difficult to reach the providers when in urgent need. There may be several reasons like lack of specialties, distance, etc. In such cases remote patient monitoring can help to a very great extent facilitating medical attention at doorsteps, eliminating long-distance travel, etc. Providing medical care to people of all ages of the especially aging population will help improve the health of the population.

Helps Reduce Costs

This care model will help move from reactive care to proactive care. Providing immediate attention will help reduce readmission rates, reduce hospital admissions, etc. thereby helps reduce the overall cost.

To treat patients remotely, healthcare organizations should adopt and use technologies that help them enhance care experience, improve patient health outcomes, and reduce overall cost.

Schedule a demo and talk to HealthViewX RPM Solution experts and get your RPM started in a jiffy!

Implementing Virtual Care in Referral Management to Enhance Patient Experience

Today, healthcare organizations are working diligently to improve care coordination, care continuity, and patient experience. Among these targets, improving patient experience is the primary goal that organizations want to achieve. Organizations are working towards streamlining processes to smoothen the patient care journey and improve the overall patient experience.

How can you deliver the best experience to patients?

Emerging global health challenges such as Aging baby boomers and increased chronic health issues have placed an increased strain on the existing medical and social services. The US healthcare system is the costliest in the world, accounting for 17% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018. This number is expected to grow to nearly 20% by 2020. [Source: National Healthcare Expenditure Projections, 2010-2020. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary.]

Addressing all the three dimensions of triple aim at the same time is crucial. A systematic approach to streamline processes will result in a healthier population, and assure a seamless journey through the whole system of care. A comprehensive automation solution can help simplify processes, and enable the entire system to manage change in a structured manner, paving the way for better patient experience.

Today, one of the processes that would be improved with automation is patient referral management. Patient satisfaction or experience, and quality care depend on effective care coordination not just within the physician’s office but also between physician’s primary health centers, and other care settings (specialty centers, hospitals, health systems, etc.). Using a smart platform for prior authorization, specialists match to alert when referrals need attention and automatically send patient updates to referring providers. This provides them with real-time analytics to gain better insights and also closes the referral loop, which addresses the biggest issue in the referral process today.

Ensuring care continuity and coordination of care for patients by easily scheduling the right specialists will transform the health center to meet the patient’s comprehensive health needs. Increased efficiency of the referral process leads to quality care and better patient experience.

The Use of Video Conferencing in Referral Management

Innovative methods are needed to enhance care quality, improve access to care, and improve patient outcomes. Video conferencing is one such feature that enables real-time two-way video with audio transmission and sharing of diagnostic images, and more. It helps patients to access healthcare services without the burden of travel and receive timely care.

Want to know more? Schedule a demo and talk to HealthViewX solution experts to understand in detail about our virtual care capability in the Referral Management Solution.

Transform Care Journey to Deliver Value-Based Care

The shift from volume-to-value-based is improving patient health outcomes and reshaping the relationship between patients and providers. With the increasing role of technology in the healthcare setting, patients extensively rely on digital sources to stay informed, engaged, and connected with the physicians and specialists involved in their treatment.

This transformation with the use of healthcare technology solutions is progressively gaining importance across all stakeholders in the healthcare value chain, from patients to health systems, and payers. The key reasons are qualitative treatment modules and improved patient care which also contribute to potential cost savings. The transition from volume to value is expected to expand, despite concerns about providers’ slow adoption of technology.

Patient Journey Mapping

Today healthcare organizations are driven by Meaningful Use policies and regulations, meaning they are focusing on understanding and improving the overall patient journey. Both qualitative and quantitative data can be analyzed to improve smooth transition across care settings. This analysis will help providers further improve patient care, satisfaction, and experience.

The current setting has several limiting factors like the below

To stay competitive in today’s constantly evolving healthcare market, providers need to evaluate technology solutions and leverage patient journey solutions to streamline processes and provide excellent clinical care. Implementing processes and programs that deliver timely information will help improve pre and post clinical engagement and can help fill gaps that cause leakages in the patient experience

Benefits of Streamlining Patient Journey

Patients and providers share information at different phases such as appointment scheduling, need for a specialist, or lab test results. Every healthcare organization has hitches that can happen anywhere, starting from appointment scheduling to post-care follow-ups. At each of these points, information flow between physicians, specialists, and the patient should be synthesized.

Patient journey mapping will help in streamlining the workflow, keeping track of the patient’s health conditions, and creating an opportunity for improvements in operations. Overall, it helps improve patient experience and continuity of care.

Talk to HealthViewX Solution experts to strategically build a patient journey map. Unleash the power of the HealthViewX HOPE Platform to layout all touchpoints and goals in terms of healthcare outcomes.

Understand the importance, value and use of Telehealth during this pandemic

Understanding Preventive Care Services

Telehealth has become increasingly important and has seen a striking evolution during this COVID 19 pandemic and is especially capable of having a huge effect on how patients communicate with providers and receive care.

Telehealth refers to a broader scope of remote healthcare services. According to the World Health Organization, Telehealth encompasses, “Surveillance, health promotion, and public health functions.”

The National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers has published a video on “Telehealth Policy in a Post-COVID-19 World.” In this video, Center For Connected Health Policy (CCHP) tells what temporary policy changes might remain Post-COVID-19 and what could be issues that policymakers may think merit future action. This will help policymakers, practitioners, payers, and the public understand how to accurately discuss “Telehealth” and its key components.

Understanding the dynamics of Telehealth

Telehealth is presently delivered in 2 major ways:

Video Conferencing (VC) - This is used for real-time provider-patient consultations, PCP-Specialist/ Provider – Provider.

No special software downloads for patients to connect, just click the HIPAA secure link to join the video call, share videos, file, photos, messages, etc.
Patients and providers can connect from anywhere, improved access for remote patients
Easy text or email reminders, easy reschedules, patient self-scheduling.

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) - This is used to provide appropriate support for patient self-management and helps in gathering patient data outside of traditional healthcare settings or helps transmit patient health information to health care providers.

RPM Benefits for patients:

No travel expenses and spending time on travel as the in-person visit is not required
Less interference with personal responsibilities like childcare, elder care, etc
No exposure to other potentially contagious patients

RPM Benefits for Providers:

Increased efficiency and revenue
Better patient care and improved health outcomes
Fewer circumstances that lead to no-shows

Importance, benefits, and use of Telehealth

Telehealth provides valuable features that help providers achieve health care’s triple aim – access to care, improved patient outcomes, and reduce cost to the provider. Telehealth removes obstructions of time, distance, and specialty lack. This includes remote, rural, and medically underserved urban communities.

It helps reduce readmissions, stops unnecessary hospitalizations, and ER visits.
It provides peace of mind to patients' family members as they know the patient is receiving the proactive care they need.
It incessantly captures and analyses real-time data and integrates alert algorithms, and helps identify patients who are at risk of emergency department visits (ER Visits) or hospitalization.
It is more reliable, enhances the quality of care, care coordination, saves costs, and time for both the provider and the patient.

Related Article: Role of Telehealth In Chronic Care

How to implement Telehealth:

Implement Telehealth into your existing operation and it has to be designed to complement your standard practices and workflows.

Plan a workflow analysis to reveal how this has to fit in with standard clinical practice.
Consider this technology as another tool for the delivery of normal services with the only difference of the patient being at a remote location.
Keep it simple.

Implementing sustainable Telehealth is the need of the hour. Talk to HealthViewX solution experts to understand how to instantly launch a Telehealth Program into your practice. Schedule a demo today, get up and run quickly, get started in a jiffy irrespective of the size of the operation.