By Barbara R. Fallon
Q. Is there a doctor in the house?
A. Most likely, especially if doctors and community health centers take telehealth to the next level with WITHmyDOC.
WITHmyDOC is a digital healthcare company that virtually connects patients to their care teams, providing real-time data to monitor symptom and disease progression. Founded in 2018, WITHmyDOC uses a web-based intelligence platform for remote patient monitoring (RPM) that transforms healthcare delivery.
Through the platform, partner health systems, physician offices and healthcare organizations can provide remote patient monitoring that facilitates proactive intervention for chronic care management and telehealth visits.
According to Jorge Rodriguez, vice president of sales and marketing, who joined the company before COVID 2020, the pandemic has played a role in accelerating acceptance of the value of remote patient monitoring.
While software engineers, digital experts, and developers knew there were capabilities and opportunities before COVID to connect providers and patients outside of doctor’s offices and healthcare clinics; the practice of telehealth visits and remote patient monitoring had limited acceptance with only 1% market share. However, when the pandemic contributed further to staff shortages, job stress and burnout, it bolstered the entrepreneurial spirit of WITHmyDOC to provide new methodologies and remote resources to doctors and patients.
“Now, increased education and improved reimbursement guidelines have given remote patient monitoring more traction and acceptance by physicians, resulting in a greater opportunity for remote patient care,” did he declare.
With the extreme shortages of nurses caused by the expansion of lucrative opportunities for traveling nurses; and increased physician burnout rates due to intensive hospital monitoring of COVID patients; as well as the trend of COVID fear of patients delaying office visits; there was a need for an alternative business strategy for medical practices to provide quality patient care.
Patients have many reasons for not coming to the office, from transportation issues and childcare responsibilities, to the constraints of employment and low income. Virtual monitoring can alleviate many of these valid excuses with home monitoring devices and videos to provide the diagnosis and care needed by patients in their homes, communities and other places, especially while hospitals face high occupancy crisis due to COVID.
RPM @ Home®
WITHmyDOC created and launched the RPM @ Home® program which places high value on patient engagement, adoption and buy-in, which translates into better outcomes. Using artificial intelligence, this platform helps monitor patients and transmits real-time data allowing healthcare providers to review patient biometric data as often as needed between office visits, which facilitates detection, diagnosis and treatment of symptoms such as high blood pressure, low oxygen levels, increased / decreased weight due to medications, arrhythmias, high temperature and high blood sugar . Studies show that integrating RPM into the management of chronic disease in patients with co-morbidities can dramatically improve patients’ quality of life by preventing complications.
RPM @ Home® patients receive wireless sensor kits to use at home to electronically record vital signs for monitoring. For example, the O2 saturation sensor is a clip that the patient places on their finger to record the level of oxygen; an ECG patch is placed on the chest and records the heartbeat trace; The blood pressure monitor wirelessly records systolic and diastolic readings directly into the system. The kit also includes an 8 inch tablet, which is used to capture and save information in the database.
Education and communication are vital
However, providing equipment to patients for free, without vital education and communication with patients regarding the commitment to monitor their vital signs to avoid further deterioration does not promise successful patient adherence. For example, thanks to customer feedback, WITHmyDOC recognized that nursing shortages created problems for doctors. in Rodriguez.
“Our PEP team provides training to ensure confidence, knowledge and ease of use. They work with patients in their homes to introduce RPM and monitoring to ensure understanding not only of how to use the equipment itself, but also the importance of consistent transmission of their physiological data. to the care team for monitoring. In addition, our MED Squad specialists are available if a full-service clinical surveillance program is preferred and provides a valuable benefit in reducing the burden on physicians, ”he said.
WITHmyDOC nurses can monitor key vital signs and simultaneously encourage patient engagement through regular communications, check-ins and reminders. The MED team checks automatic alerts categorized into non-urgent, urgent and emergent groups and connects with the doctor to determine care plans. Staff understand how important it is for patients to learn new technology and ease of use early on, and for physician alerts to be shared in real time.
Rodriguez explained that the RPM @ Home® system is not intended to replace traditional office visits. Its goal is to systematically provide more data to physicians to help them guide their decision-making, increasing proactive interventions to reduce costly emergency room visits that place a financial burden on our health and meet reimbursement guidelines. Providers can increase their care footprint through the use of RPM, which relieves their time stress and provides greater job satisfaction.
Improved care for vulnerable populations
Additionally, the US bailout and the FCC’s COVID-19 telehealth program now allow community health centers to use federal grants for telehealth and RPM services specifically for vulnerable, underinsured and uninsured communities. insureds who otherwise often forgo care due to lack of transportation, inability to find a doctor or lack of time to obtain primary care due to physical issues, home childcare responsibilities and / or limitations hours of work. Care is postponed until urgent and often at a higher cost and more threatening to recovery.
Rodriguez summed up: “The RPM @ Home® Kit offers many benefits by using the latest advances in medical technology to monitor patients with chronic conditions that typically require more attention. Proactively reducing emergency room visits and readmissions minimizes emerging situations that could help alleviate provider burnout. The platform enables providers to receive real-time patient information to quickly and efficiently examine large numbers of monitored patients. Its reporting functionality also facilitates invoicing.
“Using artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, this user-friendly, end-to-end web intelligence system is designed to be successful and is here to stay,” he predicts.
For more information, visit www.withmydoc.com to request a demo.
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