Population Health

The EDie software will enable members of the Kentucky Hospital Association to coordinate care with each other, and with skilled nursing facilities and other clinics statewide. It could also offer a valuable tool to help fight the opioid crisis.

With remote patient monitoring a hot topic among healthcare providers, a new survey indicates patients would be open to outfitting themselves with wearable devices if it resulted in fewer trips to visit the doctor. WHY IT MATTERS The study of 100 participants ages 40 and over, conducted by connected healthcare solutions provider VivaLNK, found nearly two-thirds (64 percent) would put on a wearable health monitoring device if it meant it reducing the number of trips made to visit a doctor or hospital. Overall interest in wearables like a Fitbit or the Apple Watch for remote patient monitoring purposes was high, with more than half (55 percent) of respondents noting they would use such a device at home. THE LARGER TREND Healthcare organizations see the potential of RMS in combination with telehealth for convenience and cost savings, and many are currently exploring how to adopt it. In one case, use of an inhaler-connected sensor helped push the average number of COPD-related hospital trips down to an average of 2.2, compared to the year prior to study enrollment (when the average was 3.4), a recent study from the Cleveland Clinic medical center and Propeller Health found. For another example, ClearSky Medical Diagnostics currently employs Shimmer Research wearables for clinical trials, a partnership that uses Shimmer’s Verisense platform to improve analysis of sensor data for central nervous system diseases. And among the new products unveiled at HIMSS19 this past February was VitalConnect’s Vista Solution 2.0, which added a weight scale, blood pressure and pulse oximetry and core temperature reader to the existing eight vital sign measurements monitored by the company’s VitalPatch biosensor. However, there is evidence to suggest the potential benefits of RMS – not to mention the accuracy of certain devices or the security with which sensitive information is stored or transmitted – has not been fully studied.  "Remote patient monitoring … will be increasingly important," Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO Dr. John Halamka wrote on his blog earlier this year. But while "many thought leaders are convinced that remote patient monitoring improves patient care," he said, "surveys suggest that health-care professionals are still not convinced." ON THE RECORD "Remote patient monitoring and the wearable devices that make it possible are not new concepts, but there's more progress that can be made by understanding patient motivations," Jiang Li, CEO of VivaLNK, said in a statement. "While the appointment can't always be avoided, RPM is the key to reducing the time, energy and money it takes to physically visit a doctor's office." As Li noted and the survey also indicated, costs of the appointment, distance, and disliking healthcare facilities were all top reasons survey respondents gave for wanting to reduce physical visits to the doctor. "Patients have always disliked visiting the doctor's office, and now there's a way to mitigate that,” Li continued. “This survey highlights what really fuels and drives consumer behavior from a healthcare perspective." Nathan Eddy is a healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin. Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com Twitter: @dropdeaded209

KVC Health Systems CIO Lonnie Johnson describes the predictive modeling goals and first steps toward AI and machine learning of the multi-state provider of foster care and adoption services.

Kotona At Home is a remote delivery care treatment center whose goal is to give people the means to live at home longer.

A new study from the company explores the ways its algorithms can be put to work improving risk scoring and stratification and enhance value-based care initiatives.

During the ‘Promoting the implementation of electronic health records’ Seminar that took place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam last week, the Ministry of Health announced that Electronic Health Records (EHRs) will be deployed nationwide from July this year. WHAT’S THE IMPACT “The collection of health information will help the Vietnamese manage their health better. This will also raise their self-awareness of disease prevention and the potential risk of diseases affecting health and life,” emphasised Nguyen Truong Son, Deputy Minister of Health, Vietnam. From the doctors’ and caregivers perspectives, the deployment of EHRs will be an important tool in the prevention and treatment of diseases for the community. The availability of EHRs will also prove invaluable in helping the decision-making processes of doctors, especially during emergency cases in which time is of the essence. Currently, there are 24 provinces implementing EHRs in Vietnam, of which 6 are officially considered as the 'piloting EHR provinces'. The 6 piloting provinces met in Hanoi on June 13-14 for a workshop to share their learning experiences and for further planning. “The EHRs will be the basis of a national health data system as each citizen from birth to death will be granted a social insurance code. The construction of medical identifiers based on social insurance codes almost never misses anyone, except for citizens who are born but for some reason, have no birth certificates,” said Associate Prof. Dr. Tran Quy Tuong, Director of the Information Technology Department, Ministry of Health, Vietnam. LONG TERM PLANS “In order to achieve the goal of 90% of the population being managed for health by 2025, the Ministry of Health is urgently working towards the implementation of EHRs,” said Deputy Health Minister Nguyen. The Health Ministry has already approved the application of IT at commune and ward health stations in the period of 2018-2020. The Ministry of Health has numerous policies based on the EHR and data and health information standards – more specific guidelines, especially those around interoperability, will be issued in the coming months. 

The Big C. is a platform to connect a community that offers leadership and skill training, while transforming the patient journey, says founder Stefanie Veraghtert.

Health data that has been collected securely is being used to improve life for Finland's population, creating trust between the government and its citizens, says the country's Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health Päivi Sillanaukee, MD, PhD.

More than half of those polled by American Well say they're willing to use virtual visits – citing quicker healthcare service, time and money savings as big benefits.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has announced the agency will vote to advance a $100 million Connected Care Pilot Program, enabling telehealth expansion for low-income Americans nationwide. WHY IT MATTERS Speaking in rural Laurel Fork, Virginia, Carr announced that the new funding is meant to increase access to care to patients and veterans in remote areas such as Appalachia. “With advances in telemedicine, healthcare is no longer limited to the confines of traditional brick and mortar healthcare facilities,” said Carr in a statement. "I think the FCC should support this new trend towards connected care, which is the healthcare equivalent of moving from Blockbuster to Netflix. That’s why the FCC will vote to advance my $100 million pilot program at our July 10 meeting." He added that the program will "focus on ensuring that low-income Americans and veterans can access this technology, particularly in rural communities like Laurel Fork, where the nearest hospital is in a different state, access to telehealth can make a life-saving difference." FCC is set to vote on a notice of proposed rulemaking next month that will seek comment on several potential provisions, including $100 million in Universal Service Fund support that will help rural providers to defray the cost of offering remote care to low-income patients, including people in medically underserved areas and veterans. The NPRM would also seek support for new pilot projects to seek innovation diabetes management, the opioid crisis, high-risk pregnancies, pediatric heart disease and cancer, according to the FCC. It would also offer an 85 percent discount on qualifying services for three years, along with efforts to assess the benefits, costs and savings enabled by telehealth and remote monitoring tools. THE LARGER TREND Connected care technologies have already enabled cost efficiencies with the management of chronic conditions, the FCC points out. It estimates that more widespread use of remote patient monitoring and virtual visits could save the American healthcare system $305 billion each year. Moreover, it would enable better health outcomes. The agency noted a study of 20 RPM trials that found a 20 percent reduction in all-cause mortality and a 15 percent reduction in heart failure-related hospitalizations. Another initiative showed a 46 percent reduction in ER visits, a 53 percent decrease in inpatient admissions and a 25 percent shorter length of stay. As evidence of telehealth's benefits, the FCC pointed to a pilot project in the Mississippi Delta that resulted in nearly $700,000 in annual savings thanks to reduced readmissions. It also noted big ROI in a recent virtual care study in the Northeast, where every dollar spent on remote monitoring resulted in a $3.30 savings. ON THE RECORD But better health is the true value of telemedicine, and "in Laurel Fork, telehealth is already delivering results," said Carr from the Virginia press conference. "Diabetes patients here that participated in a remote telehealth program saw their A1C levels decline by 2.2 points on average, which significantly reduced their risk of renal disease, heart disease and death caused by those conditions. "Through the Connected Care Pilot Program, the FCC can build on the success of projects like these, which are helping create a model for the adoption of connected care technologies and bridging the doctor divide in rural America," he said. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.