RPM reduces 30-day readmission rates by 50% at Lee Health
Connected care at-home technologies enable behavior change and enable individuals and physicians to make informed decisions about healthcare treatment. By using them, healthcare providers can increase patient engagement, enabling personalized and proactive care management that delivers better health outcomes and better care experiences.
Additionally, these home and remote patient monitoring technologies can optimize resource utilization, streamline care delivery, shorten length of stay in the acute setting, and reduce readmissions – leading to a tangible return on investment for healthcare organizations.
Digital care at home
Dr. Zsolt Kulcsar, system medical director at Lee Health/Virtual Health, based in Fort Myers, Florida, is an expert in virtual care and home technologies. He will speak at the HIMSS24 Global Conference and Exhibition in a session titled “Digital Care at Home Improving Clinical and Patient Outcomes.” Here he provides a preview of the session’s themes and objectives.
“The focus of our session is on how technology enables and improves clinical workflows and patient experiences and outcomes, especially when applied to an emerging area of telemedicine such as remote patient monitoring,” he explained. “A lot of Healthcare providers have been offering RPM to their patients for more than a decade in more traditional settings, such as home care, during the few weeks that the home care team is involved in a patient’s care.
“The goal of using RPM was to improve the management of a chronic condition such as heart failure by providing physiological data to the healthcare team (the RN, PT, respiratory therapist visiting the home) to improve outcomes,” he continued. “RPM has become more widely used and accepted since the introduction of independently billable CPT codes in late 2018, which can be billed independently of home care – normally a bundled payment for all services provided.”
This new payment modality has driven the adoption and integration of RPM into various aspects of healthcare. As a result, RPM is now an emerging area of intense focus and attention from healthcare systems as it has long been recognized that it improves data-driven care at home and provides meaningful education to patients on self-management in a way that can generate revenue. for the treatment team, he added.
RPM technology has advanced tremendously
“Additionally, the technology used to deliver care through RPM has advanced tremendously, with the equipment becoming cheaper, smaller, and integrated into a kit that captures multiple pieces of physiological data, including blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, weight, and patient weight.” reported results through surveys,” Kulcsar explained.
“The technology in the kit also allows patients to provide instant feedback on how they are feeling and communicate with their treatment team via text message, phone call or video call, serving as a lifeline in the home,” he continued. “Suppliers have emerged who can make these kits, which have been approved by the FDA for their ability to collect medical-grade data and provide logistics services, making it easier to get them into the hands of patients who would benefit most could have in healthcare delivered via these devices.”
The session will highlight the care Lee Health provides after partnering with Health Recovery Solutions – KLAS’ top RPM provider for the past four years.
“We will share how the RPM technology was applied to improve patient care through a newly created department that was independent of home care, allowing our team to benefit from billing, help build a sustainable program, and move the needle from simple remote patient monitoring to a higher level of acute care. care at home that we call remote patient management,” said Kulcsar.
“We have built a uniquely structured clinical team that, as a foundation layer, pairs every patient in our program with a registered nurse and enhances the care delivered by pairing an advanced care provider – a nurse practitioner or physician assistant – with the RNs who do the triage immediate ability to perform an intervention based on received physiological data,” he continued.
Supervision by doctor
In addition, the department is supervised on a daily basis by a physician/medical director who builds care pathways, serves as an escalator for advanced care providers, and improves outcomes for patients enrolled in the program through collaboration with patient specialists and the primary care team.
“The structure of our department is considered more advanced than many other RPM programs due to the additional layers of advanced providers and physician involvement,” Kulcsar noted. “Our session will highlight that team structure will be important to first capture billing for care provided and improve patient experience and outcomes.
‘Anyone who gets started Creating an RPM program can take this unique structure into account as it has served the population of Lee Health well,” he continued. “When the technology was applied to patients in Southwest Florida, we saw an overall reduction in 30-day readmission rates for all patients. clinical pathways by 50%.”
Using the technology as is, Lee Health saw an 80% compliance rate with daily vitals, which is higher than the industry average due to the technology’s ease of use and the ability to digitally remind patients of their biometric measurements to be implemented, he added.
“Our clinical team has also established tight protocols to treat patients in our program without having to call the patient’s referring primary care physician or specialist, thanks to the integration of the clinical providers and the use of built-in EHR communication tools,” he concluded.
“Digital Care at Home that Improves Clinical and Patient Outcomes” is scheduled for March 12 from 2 to 3 p.m. in room W307A at HIMSS24 in Orlando. More information and registration.
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