By Daniel Frey, vice president of business development and co-founder, FieldMed.
Daniel Frey
Not every visit with a medical provider needs to happen in person. Remote patient monitoring allows for patient interaction and data collection outside of a traditional medical setting.
Through a mixture of technologies, such as health sensors, applications and video conferencing, remote patient monitoring allows healthcare professionals to streamline patient care, which is why it has become an integral part of community health programs. Remote patient monitoring helps medical professionals overcome barriers like distance, patient engagement and lost revenue that have long impacted their work.
Five Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring
Also known as “telehealth monitoring,” remote patient monitoring has many benefits, including improved access to medical care providers, reduced drain on the healthcare system, better patient outcomes, patient empowerment and accountability, and increased revenue.
Improved Access To Medical Care Providers
Remote patient monitoring brings medical professionals to a patient — even if they’re located hundreds of miles apart. In other words, distance is no longer a factor in a patient’s treatment.
Under the community health program model, participating medical service providers from all disciplines are brought together to respond to patient needs. If monitoring mechanisms indicate a change in a patient’s condition, the appropriate healthcare professional responds to their case. This reduces the number of stops on a patient’s care journey to connect with the right care provider.
Reduced Drain On the Healthcare System
Remote patient monitoring keeps patients in their homes while receiving medical care. This is extremely important for those with compromised immunity or those who are in the beginning stages of recuperating from surgery. Their chances of contracting an infection from another person — be it a doctor, nurse, or patient — are eliminated.
Telehealth monitoring also stops unnecessary and costly trips to emergency rooms. Patients experiencing non-emergency conditions are able to skip the trip to an ER. Instead, they connect with an appropriately qualified medical professional for evaluation and care, leaving ER staff ready for true emergencies.
By Ashley Walsh, senior director of client services, LeanTaaS.
Ashley Walsh
Elective surgeries were hit hard during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, 70% of elective surgeries in the country were put on hold to free up staff and resources to care for those infected with the virus. While putting elective surgeries on hold was a necessary precaution as most facilities navigated the uncertainty, patients with scheduled procedures had their care disrupted.
Now, as multiple waves continue to afflict the country and as we head into the flu season, hospitals have been actively seeking ways to build agility into their operating room capacity and better handle the elective case fluctuations.
Operating rooms are the economic backbone of a hospital, frequently generating 50% or more revenue for the institution. In fact, a single block of operating room time can generate $50K to $100K or more in net revenue per day, so when it comes to allocating time, every minute is sacred. Despite the unknowns, hospitals that are able to manage optimal surgical capacity despite the volume reductions followed by an influx of backlogged elective cases by having access to the right information and by adapting strategies that make the strongest impact. Let’s dive in.
Get ahead of seasonal and potential patient volume fluctuations
As a first step, providers should ensure that surgical case information is available that illustrates how many elective surgeries had to be pushed or rescheduled as well as how they have historically done during the flu season. The combination of this information will help predict the upcoming winter.
Although there are online tools available to pull these insights, it’s also important to lean on the skills of data science teams to help analyze this vital information. Here are a few important data points providers should have on file to make informed decisions during these uncertain times:
baseline monthly surgery volume before COVID-19 and the percentage of baseline cases during the pandemic;
the volume of new cases that you anticipate based on COVID-19 (e.g., surgeries resulting from car accidents have likely decreased because of fewer cars on the road);
the volume of cases you expect to lose based on people losing their jobs and/or health insurance; and
historical seasonal fluctuations, particularly during flu season.
Calculate actual surgical capacity
Once you have the project stats on hand, the next step is to consider potential constraints in terms of staffing and available beds in order to calculate true surgical capacity. While doing so, it’s important to consider potential options and workarounds that may be available to expand capacity, whether that be opening up additional operating rooms, staying open for longer hours, having weekend hours and/or even redirecting some procedures to other types of rooms, when possible.
Elmiron is the brand name of the drug pentosan polysulfate sodium. This medication is used to treat pain and discomfort associated with a bladder disorder called interstitial cystitis. Prolonged use of Elmiron has recently been linked to pigmentary maculopathy, which is damage to the retina.
Consequently, Elmiron’s manufacturer, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, is being sued for failing to warn patients of the risk of severe and irreversible vision problems caused by this drug. If you’ve suffered vision problems after taking Elmiron, you may be eligible to join a class-action lawsuit.
What is Elmiron?
Elmiron was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996 for the treatment of pain in patients suffering from interstitial cystitis. Elmiron must be prescribed by a doctor, and there is no generic version available in the U.S. It is not understood exactly how the medication works, but it is believed to provide a protective coating to the lining of the bladder. It is not actually a pain medication and must therefore be taken continuously to achieve the desired effects.
What damage does Elmiron cause?
Elmiron is known to have a number of mild side effects. Most notably, it is a weak anticoagulant and therefore may increase bleeding in patients. For this reason, Elmiron is often discontinued prior to surgery to avoid excessive bleeding, and it may be dangerous to take simultaneously with other blood thinners, aspirin, or anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen. Other possible side effects include nausea, diarrhea, bloody stool, upset stomach, headaches, rashes, hair loss, dizziness, and bruising.
Student years create multiple opportunities for stress that challenge both freshmen and undergraduates. Even a student who is known as an excellent essay writer might fall out of productivity mode during the time of exams. After all, exam stress is the issue most students can’t cope with even in the later student years.
Add taking care of a family, working part-time, and finding time for self-development to the mix, for it to become easy to understand why stress during exams hits mental and physical health in such a heavy way. Read this article to find more about this kind of suppressing factor on student life to answer what is exam stress and how you can mitigate its drawbacks.
How to Deal with Exam Stress through Technologies
Dealing with exam stress is a multiple-step process, and there is no general recipe for everyone. Stress management is aimed at reducing the impact of stress factors on improving your mental state, yet it won’t remove it entirely. Students can use health monitoring devices to deal with after-exam stress as well. Among common recommendations, you can use the following ones:
By Vasilios Nassiopoulos, vice president of platform strategy and innovation, Hayes.
2020 will undoubtably be a year that the healthcare industry will want to forget. The COVID-19 pandemic not only introduced unprecedented care delivery challenges—at least in modern times—but has also left devastating financial consequences in its wake for today’s providers.
Razor-thin pre-pandemic margins of just 3.5% are now met with the reality that 97% of health systems will lose an average of $2,500 per coronavirus case despite incentives. Further exacerbating the situation is an expected increase in denials as healthcare organizations learn how to interpret new guidance around coding and billing for COVID-19 related care.
While many in the C-suite may be tempted to put their head in the sand and wait for the industry to round the corner into 2021, there is an opportunity to change current dynamics in the last lap of 2020. Amid many lessons learned from the pandemic, healthcare organizations must consider the role of sound revenue integrity practices for future preparedness and sustainability.
Progressive revenue integrity models are designed to integrate systems and processes for the purpose of eliminating revenue cycle complexities arising from issues like COVID-19 that can fast become liabilities for providers. Within these models, healthcare organizations are increasingly finding that strong partnerships between revenue integrity, revenue cycle and billing compliance teams are essential. While these functions have, more frequently than not, operated in siloes, embracing shared monitoring and auditing processes can streamline budgets and improve revenue recoupment and generate long lasting collaboration and communication.
To get ahead of the evolving revenue storm, hospitals and health systems can take four steps to get their billing and compliance house in order:
By Devin Partida, technology writer and the editor-in-chief, ReHack.com.
Healthcare technology is experiencing something of a golden age at the moment. The world is undergoing an unprecedented period of technological advancement, and the medical industry is at the forefront of this revolution. One of the most promising instances of this trend is the adoption of virtual tech in healthcare.
From virtual reality (VR) to teleconferencing to 3D modeling, virtual technology takes many forms. Nearly all of them have applications in the healthcare industry. These technologies show so much potential that 96% of medical centers plan to expand their use within the year.
Here are five of the most prominent ways virtual tech is pushing healthcare forward.
1. Reducing Exposure to Contagious Diseases
Perhaps the most popular application of virtual healthcare is telemedicine. Patients can consult medical professionals using videoconferencing technology. Since they don’t have to go to a hospital, they don’t have to expose themselves to other, potentially contagious patients.
The reduced need for hospital visits has proven particularly advantageous during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telemedicine interactions increased 37 times over from February to April, during the height of the outbreak. Virtual communication allowed people to access healthcare without risking contracting the virus.
2. Reducing Medical Costs
Eliminating frequent hospital visits can also save patients a considerable amount of money. An emergency room visit costs $1,917 on average, and not every condition warrants a hospital trip. By contacting medial experts through virtual healthcare instead, patients can avoid many of these expenses.
Hospital fees aside, telehealth saves patients money through reduced travel times. In a nation where health care costs are a widely publicized and controversial concern, anything that allows for affordable care is welcome. Some people won’t even seek medical attention due to financial troubles, so monetary savings could also save lives.
3. Making Expert Care More Accessible
Virtual tech in healthcare can also improve the quality of care patients receive. In some areas, especially more remote or impoverished locations, patients may not have access to expert care. Tech like teleconferencing and even remote-controlled medical bots can allow the world’s top doctors to help people virtually anywhere.
Hospitals can also explore the advantages of new tech or services through virtual exhibits and demonstrations. These interactive spaces allow staff to experience the benefits of a new system before paying for them. That way, hospitals can make informed decisions about purchasing new healthcare tech and possibly upgrading their services.
What do you envision when you think of rural living? Chances are, images of pastoral fields, idyllic red barns, and even herds of dairy cows come to mind.
While such a vision is a reality for at least some of the 60 million Americans who live in rural areas — sparsely populated regions confusingly described by the U.S. Census Bureau as “not urban” — living in a rural area has its downsides when it comes to healthcare.
Lack of access to high-quality, affordable healthcare providers plagues rural America. One main reason is that hospitals located in low-population regions face significant financial struggles. According to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 132 rural hospitals shuttered their doors since 2010, leaving many Americans with fewer care options.
Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 has only accelerated rural hospital financial hardship, potentially making in-person office visits even more of a herculean challenge.
Technological innovations, including in-app communication and HIPAA compliance, enable telemedicine to become a must-needed lifeline for rural communities requiring medical care and guidance. In short, tech is shifting the healthcare landscape for the better.
Distance Connecting
Rural Americans have the longest commute to visit a hospital compared with people who live in suburban or urban regions. According to Pew Research Center’s analysis, those who live in rural areas must travel an average of 10.5 miles to reach a hospital — 139% greater than those who live in urban areas and have ready access to healthcare facilities.
Telemedicine, defined as the practice of using technology to deliver care at a distance, is mitigating and sometimes wholly eliminating long travel times required to visit a rural healthcare facility. Via the use of HIPAA-compatible live chats, video meetings, and phone calls, people living in sparsely populated areas receive quality care and guidance from the comfort of their homes.
Telehealth is a $2.6B industry and has grown more than 25% since 2015. The global COVID-19 pandemic has switched telehealth’s use and acceptance into overdrive, and nearly every healthcare discipline is utilizing some form of telehealth platforms as part of their clinical offerings.
As the pandemic brought life to a stand-still, industries and employees were placed into one of two categories: those who provided essential services like grocery store staff, doctors, and emergency medical personnel and those who were deemed non-essential.
Non-essential businesses were ordered to shut down all operations while government officials figured out the next best steps for the safety of its citizens. Initially, physical therapy and other non-clinical medical professions were deemed non-essential. This changed when the Department of Homeland Security, along with state governments and healthcare officials, deemed physical therapy an essential healthcare service that should continue to treat its patients.
This acknowledgment placed the physical therapy sector in an interesting predicament. On one hand, many municipalities had issued stay-at-home orders. Even with the re-categorization of physical therapy as an essential healthcare service, many patients simply feared leaving their homes and chose to postpone much-needed physical therapy appointments until the virus was contained.
This dilemma forced physical therapy practitioners to explore the telehealth platform as a way to continue treating patients and to create a much-needed revenue stream for the health of the practice.
COVID-19 Triggers Regulatory Changes
The telehealth industry was already changing dramatically due to COVID-19. To help telehealth services become more widely available, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma relaxed HIPAA restrictions that had previously limited telemedicine as a patient care option.
The deregulations included the ability of physicians to treat patients across state lines without becoming licensed in that particular state and ushered in the development of IT infrastructures that did not meet compliance or regulatory parameters established by HIPPA laws. Lastly, a rapid introduction and approval of dozens of new billing codes were issued to itemize and enable medical professionals to bill Medicare for telehealth services.
For example, Medstar Health, an integrated health system in the Washington D.C. area, went from 10 telehealth visits per week to 4,000 per day. FAIR Health reported that telehealth claims went from their March 2019 base of 0.17% of all claims to 7.57% by the end of March 2020—a 43-fold increase in the first month of the pandemic alone. In the Northeast, where COVID hit incredibly hard, telehealth visits increased 150-fold.
Elmiron is the brand name of the drug pentosan polysulfate sodium. This medication is used to treat pain and discomfort associated with a bladder disorder called interstitial cystitis. Prolonged use of Elmiron has recently been linked to pigmentary maculopathy, which is damage to the retina.
Healthcare technology is experiencing something of a golden age at the moment. The world is undergoing an unprecedented period of technological advancement, and the medical industry is at the forefront of this revolution. One of the most promising instances of this trend is the adoption of virtual tech in healthcare.
