Remote Patient Monitoring: Navigating the Shift to Hybrid Care Models
Telemedicine has become increasingly popular over the past few years. Telehealth adoption during Veristat clinical development consulting has grown due to the complex needs of public health emergencies, solidifying the transition to home and hybrid care models. Healthcare delivered at the patient’s home has the potential to save costs and improve access to treatment without putting undue strain on emergency rooms or hospital beds. Medical device companies, accountable care organizations (ACOs), and health systems all see considerable opportunities in facilitating communication between inpatient and outpatient settings.
The following are some examples of how healthcare systems could play a role in the transition to hybrid care models:
Improve the visibility of post-acute care benchmarking
When patients check into post-acute care facilities, a lot of healthcare networks and ACOs track and monitor them to some extent. However, monitoring care in only one direction does not allow optimal performance. Care teams can perform better if they have better insight into what happens to patients once they leave the hospital. Supporting proactive and responsive care planning requires real-time digital communication and coordination among care teams. The ability of care teams to communicate with one another and keep tabs on their patients’ health is crucial to preventing unnecessary trips to the emergency room, hospitalizations, and readmissions.
Support a preferred home-based provider network
Hybrid care models necessitate the implementation of techniques to facilitate collaboration amongst the several service providers who handle varying aspects of care delivery. Healthcare networks must assess home-based providers based on their potential to provide various service bundles, service areas, capacity for care, and predicted turnaround times to foster more cohesion and collaboration during at home clinical trials. Providers who actively participate digitally and utilize the resources and infrastructure essential to delivering hybrid care will be invaluable partners for healthcare systems.
Take advantage of all that remote patient monitoring has to offer
Health systems can get a lot out of getting patients to take charge of their care and proactively collect important information about their health state and care outcomes. There is room to extend services and deliver these diagnostic tools to a larger variety of patient demographics, but now remote patient monitoring is primarily being used to assist chronic patients. The key to successful remote patient involvement is integrating the monitoring of vital sign data with active care teams and the patient’s understanding of the numerous elements that contribute to holistic health and wellness. Patients will benefit most from digital health tools if they can immediately start using them without creating an account or learning how to utilize a new interface.
Use technology to improve accessibility, communication, and teamwork.
Management teams in the healthcare industry often face problems like employee shortages and fatigue. To facilitate the transition to home-based care, healthcare systems must increase the availability of professional teams without overwhelming existing personnel with the complexities of adopting modern processes and treatment models. One area in which care teams can help physicians do more with less effort is through the use of technology, which can lighten the load of change management. To better keep patients safe and healthy, simple enhancements like text-based check-ins with patients can enable care teams to receive real-time health status reports and manage by exception.
Providers can improve patient connectivity and immediate access to treatment plans with the use of emerging digital health technology, thereby increasing their flexibility to adapt to patients’ evolving requirements and tailor home-based care accordingly.
