by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | May 18, 2015
From the May 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
That oversaturation can be detrimental to hospitals. “It’s so much information and the problem that has occurred in the industry is that most people opened up all of that data to the care professionals so they’re seeing every blood pressure reading five times a day from a patient and it’s screwing up their workflow,” says Sean Slovenski, CEO of Intel-GE Care Innovations, a joint venture between Intel Corporation and GE that conducts research on these wearable devices to advise health care organizations.
To solve that, Vital Connect is working with physicians to understand what information they need, so they can create algorithms in order to provide them with only that information. Care Innovations already has its own software and analytics platform for that called Health Harmony, which was launched in November.
The platform figures out what pieces of information the physicians need to prompt them to interact with their patients. Instead of giving them 12 vital readings a day on a patient who just left the hospital with congestive heart failure, they aim to only give them one reading when the vitals fluctuate in an unusual way.
The platform includes a patient portal so the patient can collect and share information on their vitals, a view for the clinician into the portal so they know when to intervene and a view for the family care giver who delivers about half of the care in the home.
Cost is also a concern for physicians since hospitals and practices don’t have as much money to spend in this new health care environment. CMS is currently not providing reimbursement for these technologies, but industry experts believe that hospitals will see a return on investment through avoiding readmissions and satisfying incentives. It’s a given that if a hospital can continuously monitor a patient both in their general wards and at home, they will be able to spot a problem before it becomes costly.
“To put a thousand dollars of equipment into someone’s home, who could cost you several hundred thousand dollars if they get readmitted, is cheap,” says Slovenski. In addition, earlier this year CMS set monthly reimbursement for managing two chronic conditions in individuals. Steinhubl thinks that’s an area where wearables can be used as part of the solution.
What about the traditional monitors?
The traditional patient monitors might not be as sleek and attractive as the new wearable technology, but they’ve still come a long way in the past few years. One of the most notable advancements in recent years is that many of the patient monitors can be integrated with the EMR now. “That’s huge because it saves nursing time,” says Brandi Crow, clinical analyst at MD Buyline. “You don’t have to double document everything.”
