– Philips announces the acquisition of Capsule, a leading vendor-neutral Medical Device Integration Platform with a software-as-a-service business model
– The Capsule acquisition is a strong fit with Philips’
strategy to transform the delivery of healthcare along the health continuum
with integrated solutions.
Philips, today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquireCapsule Technologies, Inc., an Andover, MA-based provider of medical device integration and data technologies for hospitals and healthcare organizations. Capsule’s Medical Device Information Platform – comprised of device integration, vital signs monitoring, and clinical surveillance services – connects almost all existing medical devices and EMRs in hospitals through a vendor-neutral system. Capsule’s platform captures streaming clinical data and transforms it into actionable information for patient care management to enhance patient outcomes, improve collaboration between care teams, streamline clinical workflows and increase productivity.
Founded in 1997, Capsule is the leading global provider of medical device integration (MDI) and information solutions for healthcare providers. Capsule maximizes the value of live streaming medical device data by analyzing and synthesizing it across multiple sensors and devices attached to the patient to advance insight-driven, proactive care.
To date,
the company serves over 2,800 hospitals and healthcare organizations in 40
countries across the world. Capsule’s innovations are developed by strong
R&D teams in the U.S. and France. In 2020, the company achieved sales of
over USD 100 million with strong double-digit sales growth. The majority of
sales is related to recurring software-as-a-service and licensing revenues. The
acquisition will be accretive to Philips sales growth and Adjusted EBITA margin
in 2021.
Acquisition Underscores Philips Strategy to Scale Its
Patient Care Management Solutions
The acquisition of Capsule is a strong fit with Philips’
strategy to transform the delivery of care along the health continuum with integrated
solutions. Philips’ current portfolio already includes real-time patient
monitoring, therapeutic devices, telehealth, informatics and interoperability
solutions. The combination of Philips’ industry-leading portfolio with
Capsule’s leading Medical Device Information Platform, connected through
Philips’ secure vendor-neutral cloud-based HealthSuite digital platform, will
greatly enrich and scale Philips’ patient care management solutions for all
care settings in the hospital, as well as remote patient care. As part of the acquisition, Capsule and
its approximately 300 employees will become part of Philips’ Connected Care
segment.
“Integrated patient care management solutions supported by essential real-time patient data and AI are core to our strategy to improve patient outcomes and care provider productivity by seamlessly connecting care,” said Roy Jakobs, Chief Business Leader Connected Care at Royal Philips. “The acquisition of Capsule will further expand our patient care management offering. We look forward to integrating our strengths, adding a vendor-neutral medical device integration platform that further unlocks the power of medical device data to enhance patient monitoring and management, improve collaboration and streamline workflows in the ICU, as well as other care settings in the hospital and beyond its walls.”
Financial
Details
Philips
will acquire Capsule for $635M (approximately EUR 530 million) in cash. The
transaction is subject to certain closing conditions, including regulatory
clearances in relevant jurisdictions outside of the U.S. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter
of 2021.
In the face of COVID-19, healthcare witnessed how crises can become the long-awaited push for creativity and innovation that the industry needs. When our healthcare infrastructure’s weaknesses were exposed, telehealth helped to stitch them up, with the number of telehealth claims increasing 8,336% nationally from April 2019 to April 2020. Out of need, patients quickly turned to telehealth as a new model of care delivery; clinicians adapted to a new avenue for engaging with patients, policymakers began to improve incentives for its use; and home became our hospital.
As we continue the fight to control the virus in 2021, the industry is at a pivotal moment in ensuring this year’s telehealth momentum continues post-pandemic. Healthcare organizations should take time now to strategize how best to hardwire telehealth, so it is embedded into care delivery models long-term. In order to achieve this, leaders need to consider their collaboration with other stakeholders, longitudinal integration strategies that go beyond piecemeal solutions and transform the perception of what “home” means in healthcare to meet consumers where they are.
Step 1: Collaborate to advance technology
If we’ve learned anything from healthcare’s digitization over the years, it’s that technology for technology’s sake is not enough – solving healthcare’s issues is a systems problem, not a disease problem. For telehealth to last, there needs to be a clinical transformation where workflows are rewritten, policies strongly incentivize its use and companies and hospitals partner on outcome-based models that support its scalability.
In the last six months, we have seen more innovation and adoption in healthcare than we’ve seen in the last decade, with typical innovation timelines of years becoming weeks or days. In many ways, this creativity and open innovation saved the U.S. healthcare system from collapsing and helped us survive the initial surge. We also saw the collaboration of all sorts reach new heights, with organizations, federal agencies, private and public companies from different industries coming together to manage surge capacity while maintaining quality care. Another benefit of these partnerships is the emphasis on long-term policy changes that will empower lasting change and adoption of these innovative approaches. Industry efforts, like ours with the ATA, aim to promote telehealth’s growth and support hospitals, payers, and patients across care settings. The pandemic’s productive collaboration cannot stop here. Instead, we should continue to bring dimensions of policy, clinical experience, and consumer voices to imbed telehealth into our everyday systems.
Step 2: Determine avenues for seamless data integration across settings
Telehealth’s power is not in its technical claims, but in the power of presenting caregivers with actionable, meaningful patient data so they can make data-driven care decisions with confidence. This is only made possible with interoperable, cloud-based solutions that collect, digest, and analyze data to inform care. With constant transfer of key patient data through connected devices, such as hospital-grade wearables and biosensors, and translating the data into useable insights, remote patient monitoring empowers care teams with the knowledge needed to intervene earlier and keep patients healthy at home.
Telehealth’s power expands beyond the home, supporting a continuum of care no matter what setting a patient is in. Remote monitoring within the hospital is the crux of minimizing infection risk, handling sudden increases in patient volumes and allocating resources appropriately. These include solutions such as centralized clinical command centers to achieve remote, holistic patient views, or technology that activates scalable patient monitoring for ICU ramp-ups. The solutions we deploy need to be enablers of seamless data transfer – from the ED to ICU, to post-acute and home setting. We now must ensure our informatics backbones mature with these solutions, eliminating gaps in care while ensuring a secure flow of data where and when it’s needed. Deploying cloud-based platforms that bring together the right information across the care continuum will make for a powerful, integrated system that enhances patient and staff safety improves outcomes, and reduces costs.
Step 3: Transforming what “home” means in healthcare
2020 has transformed how we view “home.” Home has become the center of life operations for people across the globe – we work from home, we educate our children at home and we exercise at home. Healthcare is now becoming another cornerstone of the home. With a growing volume of telehealth offerings and household names providing care services, consumer behavior is changing to expect customization, convenience, and instant gratification. The consumer’s voice is loud, and tomorrow’s healthcare will move it from a whisper to a shout – We must be prepared to deliver care when and where patients want to receive it, increasingly let go of healthcare’s brick-and-mortar blueprint, and enable healthcare to match the ease and convenience of other areas of a patient’s life.
However, just like all these other ‘at-home’ activities that require getting used to or training, we need to support health literacy and engagement for all users. The pandemic has made the inequalities in our health system raw. Even before the pandemic, 5% of the patients account for about half of U.S. healthcare spending. This is a sign that they are not receiving the proactive care and support they need. We have an opportunity to change this equation with virtual care and bridge the digital divide by tailoring solutions to meet each patient’s needs and ensuring equitable availability to all patients.
Transforming telehealth into a standard of care
Technology isn’t the answer to telehealth’s success alone – it is virtualizing care where it is needed most and ensuring it is fully integrated across an institution. Healthcare organizations should reflect on where their greatest challenges and populations are, and look for systematic solutions for telehealth so that virtualization can scale efficiently and build from existing technology and workflows. With productive collaboration across sectors, robust data integration infrastructures, and an evolved perception of how we view healthcare, these tools have the power to influence how patients view and engage with their health, pushing the industry toward more proactive care that will have long-term benefits on outcomes and cost.
About Karsten Russell-Wood
Karsten Russell-Wood, MBA, MPH is the Portfolio Leader for Post-Acute and Home at Philips where he is responsible for Innovation and cross-business platform strategy and portfolio optimization. Prior to joining Philips, Karsten held global product management roles within GE’s healthcare businesses with an orientation to targeted patient populations and continues to be active in venture capital and startups in the digital health space.
HIT Consultant sat down with Mike McSherry, CEO, and co-founder of Seattle-based digital prescription platform Xealth to discuss digital health lessons learned in 2020 and what we can expect in 2021. As Xealth’s CEO, Mike also works with Duke Health, UPMC, Atrium Health, and The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network where he uses his background in digital health to connect patients and care teams outside of traditional care settings.
HITC: In 2021, How can digital health reduce race and minority disparities in healthcare?
McSherry: The U.S. has struggled with health disparities, which this pandemic has widened. Many of these disparities can be linked to access, which digital health can assist with – telehealth makes care virtual from any location, clinical decision support can reduce human errors, remote patient monitoring helps keep patients home while linked to care.
Digital health removes hurdles related to transportation, taking time off work, or finding childcare in order to travel in-person for an appointment. It brings care to the patient instead of the other way around, making access simpler. Care through these pathways is also more cost-efficient.
There are still hurdles to overcome. Broadband is widespread but not everywhere and inclusive design of these tools should be considered. How digital tools, including wearables, are built should address differences in gender and ethnicity, especially as these tools are used more frequently in clinical trials, so as not to inadvertently perpetuate disparities.
HITC: Why some hospitals are offering digital health tools to staff but not patients?
McSherry: There are a few factors at play when hospitals offer digital health tools to staff but not patients. One, most health systems are not currently deploying system-wide digital health initiatives, leaving the decisions to individual departments or providers. This can lead to inconsistent patient experiences and more data siloes as solutions are brought in as one-offs.
The second issue is reimbursement. A hospital acting as an employer offering digital health tools as part of its benefits package is different than a patient, who must rely on their health insurance, whether it is a public or private plan. The fact healthcare organizations see digital health tools as a perk shows their value. Now, it is time for CMS and commercial payers to consistently enable their use to help providers care for patients and incorporate digital health as clinicians see fit.
HITC: How hospitals can remain competitive in 2021, especially after tighter margins from COVID-19?
McSherry: Large tech companies, like Google and Amazon, and huge retailers, including Walmart and Best Buy, are looking to deliver the promise of health care that has so far eluded the industry. Venture capital money has been pouring in for funding innovation, with digital health funding hitting a new high in 2020.
These initiatives are all racing to control health care’s front door and if hospitals don’t innovate as well, they run a very real risk of having patients turn elsewhere for care. Payers are also building digital front doors and telling members to go there. People have long expressed their desire to have the same consumer experience in health care that they receive in other industries. The technology is there. It needs to be incorporated with the correct care pathways.
One silver lining during the COVID-19 pandemic is that it showed fast-moving innovation can happen in health care. We worked with hospitals to stand up workflows around telehealth in four days and remote patient monitoring in seven days – an amazing pace. The key is to keep this stride going once we are on the other side of this crisis.
Providers are becoming more digitally savvy to engage patients and deliver holistic care. Hospitals should support this.
HITC: What will be Biden’s impact on COVID-19, how hospital leaders should respond, and what it means that we have a divided congress?
McSherry: Under the current administration, telehealth rules have been relaxed, at least temporarily, along with cross-state licensure so providers are better able to build a front door strategy, helping organizations roll out remote patient monitoring and chronic care management apps. Biden has been a proponent of digitalization in health care and will have a broader engagement. This could lead toward more funding and more covered lives.
A divided Congress will not make much easy for the Biden administration, however, getting on the other side of this pandemic as quickly and as safely as possible is best for everyone. Biden has shown he will make fighting COVID-19 a top priority.
HITC: Will remote patient monitoring become financially viable for hospital leaders in 2021?
McSherry: Why does a diabetic patient need to have every check-in be in-person or a healthy, pregnancy met every few weeks with an in-person visit as opposed to remote monitoring for key values and a telehealth check-in in place of a couple of those visits? Moving forward, hospitals will see the benefit of remote monitoring in terms of lower overhead, along with better patient engagement, outcomes and retention.
To make this work, providers must share risk, and determine digital strategies around attracting patients and then manage them in a capitated way with more digital tools because of the cost efficiencies.
HITC: How do we foster tighter physician-patient relationships?
McSherry: Patients trust their doctors, period. The struggle is going to be more obvious as more people do not have a PCP and turn to health care with a bandage approach to take care of an immediate concern. That will lead to entire populations without that trusted bond who are sicker when they finally do seek care, due to the lack of continuity and engagement early on.
By connecting with people now, where they are comfortable, there is a tighter physician-patient relationship by making it more accessible and reciprocal.
– Cone Health transforms its maternity campus into North
Carolina’s first designated COVID-19 hospital in 28 days.
Cone Health transformed
its former women’s health campus into a designated COVID-19
hospital in 28 days. Using teamwork and technology, the Cone Health Green Valley campus
in Greensboro, North Carolina became the area’s first specialized COVID-19
hospital, boasting the latest development in coronavirus care, negative
pressure ventilation, and hands-free communication throughout the facility.
Transformation Journey
More than 80 leaders from multi-disciplinary teams across the health system were involved in redesigning the former Women’s Hospital and opening it as a COVID-19 only facility in April of 2020. By year-end, more than 1,500 patients had received care at the 116-bed COVID-19 hospital. A place once dedicated to bringing new life into the world is now dedicated to keeping life from ending too soon.
Innovative Solutions to Address COVID-19
The health system’s
Lean team and infectious disease team joined forces to ensure that clinical
workflows, operational processes, and technology solutions were safe and
efficient. Among the approved innovations used to protect and connect care
teams in the COVID-19 hospital is the wearable Vocera Smartbadge.
The voice-controlled Smartbadge enables team members to communicate hands-frees and can be worn under personal protective equipment (PPE). A nurse, doctor, or other team members can initiate communication by simply saying, “OK, Vocera” followed by voice commands like “call respiratory therapist” or “call Code Blue team.” The Smartbadge, along with the Vocera Vina smartphone app, is also being used in the new Women’s & Children’s Center at Moses Cone Hospital to help care teams provide exceptional and personal care.
“Many patients need hands-on care, whether they are a sick baby or an elderly man with COVID-19, which is why hands-free communication is ideal for many clinicians; but there also are times when clinicians need to exchange more context about the patient situation, and a secure mobile app is preferred,” said Kenneth Rempher PhD, RN, executive vice president of acute care services and chief nurse executive at Cone Health.
The combination of Teladoc Health and Livongo creates a
global leader in consumer-centered virtual care. The combined company is
positioned to execute quantified opportunities to drive revenue synergies of
$100 million by the end of the second year following the close, reaching $500
million on a run-rate basis by 2025.
Price: $18.5B in value based on each share of Livongo
will be exchanged for 0.5920x shares of Teladoc Health plus cash consideration
of $11.33 for each Livongo share.
Siemens Healthineers Acquires Varian Medical
On August 2nd, Siemens Healthineers acquired
Varian Medical for $16.4B, with the deal expected to close in 2021. Varian is a
global specialist in the field of cancer care, providing solutions especially
in radiation oncology and related software, including technologies such as
artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis. In fiscal year 2019,
the company generated $3.2 billion in revenues with an adjusted operating
margin of about 17%. The company currently has about 10,000 employees
worldwide.
Price: $16.4 billion in an all-cash transaction.
Gainwell to Acquire HMS for $3.4B in Cash
Veritas Capital (“Veritas”)-backed Gainwell Technologies (“Gainwell”),
a leading provider of solutions that are vital to the administration and
operations of health and human services programs, today announced that they
have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Gainwell will acquire HMS, a technology, analytics and engagement
solutions provider helping organizations reduce costs and improve health
outcomes.
Price: $3.4 billion in cash.
Philips Acquires Remote Cardiac Monitoring BioTelemetry for $2.8B
Philips acquires BioTelemetry, a U.S. provider of remote
cardiac diagnostics and monitoring for $72.00 per share for an implied
enterprise value of $2.8 billion (approx. EUR 2.3 billion). With $439M in
revenue in 2019, BioTelemetry annually monitors over 1 million cardiac patients
remotely; its portfolio includes wearable heart monitors, AI-based data
analytics, and services.
Price: $2.8B ($72 per share), to be paid in cash upon
completion.
Hims & Hers Merges with Oaktree Acquisition Corp to Go Public on NYSE
Telehealth company Hims & Hers and Oaktree Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merge to go public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “HIMS.” The merger will enable further investment in growth and new product categories that will accelerate Hims & Hers’ plan to become the digital front door to the healthcare system
Price: The business combination values the combined
company at an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion and is expected to
deliver up to $280 million of cash to the combined company through the
contribution of up to $205 million of cash.
SPAC Merges with 2 Telehealth Companies to Form Public
Digital Health Company in $1.35B Deal
Blank check acquisition company GigCapital2 agreed to merge with Cloudbreak Health, LLC, a unified telemedicine and video medical interpretation solutions provider, and UpHealth Holdings, Inc., one of the largest national and international digital healthcare providers to form a combined digital health company.
Price: The merger deal is worth $1.35 billion, including
debt.
WellSky Acquires CarePort Health from Allscripts for
$1.35B
WellSky, global health, and community care technology company, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Allscripts to acquireCarePort Health (“CarePort”), a Boston, MA-based care coordination software company that connects acute and post-acute providers and payers.
Price: $1.35 billion represents a multiple of greater
than 13 times CarePort’s revenue over the trailing 12 months, and approximately
21 times CarePort’s non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA over the trailing 12 months.
Waystar Acquires Medicare RCM Company eSolutions
On September 13th, revenue cycle management
provider Waystar acquires eSolutions, a provider of Medicare and Multi-Payer revenue
cycle management, workflow automation, and data analytics tools. The
acquisition creates the first unified healthcare payments platform with both
commercial and government payer connectivity, resulting in greater value for
providers.
Radiology Partners (RP), a radiology practice in the U.S., announced a definitive agreement to acquire MEDNAX Radiology Solutions, a division of MEDNAX, Inc. for an enterprise value of approximately $885 million. The acquisition is expected to add more than 800 radiologists to RP’s existing practice of 1,600 radiologists. MEDNAX Radiology Solutions consists of more than 300 onsite radiologists, who primarily serve patients in Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas, and more than 500 teleradiologists, who serve patients in all 50 states.
Price: $885M
PointClickCare Acquires Collective Medical
PointClickCare Technologies, a leader in senior care technology with a network of more than 21,000 skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities, and home health agencies, today announced its intent to acquireCollective Medical, a Salt Lake City, a UT-based leading network-enabled platform for real-time cross-continuum care coordination for $650M. Together, PointClickCare and Collective Medical will provide diverse care teams across the continuum of acute, ambulatory, and post-acute care with point-of-care access to deep, real-time patient insights at any stage of a patient’s healthcare journey, enabling better decision making and improved clinical outcomes at a lower cost.
Price: $650M
Teladoc Health Acquires Virtual Care Platform InTouch
Health
Teladoc Health acquires InTouch Health, the leading provider of enterprise telehealth solutions for hospitals and health systems for $600M. The acquisition establishes Teladoc Health as the only virtual care provider covering the full range of acuity – from critical to chronic to everyday care – through a single solution across all sites of care including home, pharmacy, retail, physician office, ambulance, and more.
Price: $600M consisting of approximately $150 million
in cash and $450 million of Teladoc Health common stock.
AMN Healthcare Acquires VRI Provider Stratus Video
AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. acquires Stratus Video, a leading provider of video remote language interpretation services for the healthcare industry. The acquisition will help AMN Healthcare expand in the virtual workforce, patient care arena, and quality medical interpretation services delivered through a secure communications platform.
Price: $475M
CarepathRx Acquires Pharmacy Operations of Chartwell from
UPMC
CarepathRx, a leader in pharmacy and medication management
solutions for vulnerable and chronically ill patients, announced today a
partnership with UPMC’s Chartwell subsidiary that will expand patient access to
innovative specialty pharmacy and home infusion services. Under the $400M
landmark agreement, CarepathRx will acquire the
management services organization responsible for the operational and strategic
management of Chartwell while UPMC becomes a strategic investor in CarepathRx.
Price: $400M
Cerner to Acquire Health Division of Kantar for $375M in
Cash
Cerner announces it will acquire Kantar Health, a leading
data, analytics, and real-world evidence and commercial research consultancy
serving the life science and health care industry.
This acquisition is expected to allow Cerner’s Learning
Health Network client consortium and health systems with more opportunities to
directly engage with life sciences for funded research studies. The acquisition
is expected to close during the first half of 2021.
Price: $375M
Cerner Sells Off Parts of Healthcare IT Business in
Germany and Spain
Cerner sells off parts of healthcare IT business in Germany and Spain to Germany company CompuGroup Medical, reflecting the company-wide transformation focused on improved operating efficiencies, enhanced client focus, a refined growth strategy, and a sharpened approach to portfolio management.
Price: EUR 225 million ($247.5M USD)
CompuGroup Medical Acquires eMDs for $240M
CompuGroup Medical (CGM) acquires eMDs, Inc. (eMDs), a
leading provider of healthcare IT with a focus on doctors’ practices in the US,
reaching an attractive size in the biggest healthcare market worldwide. With
this acquisition, the US subsidiary of CGM significantly broadens its position
and will become the top 4 providers in the market for Ambulatory Information
Systems in the US.
Price: $240M (equal to approx. EUR 203 million)
Change Healthcare Buys Back Pharmacy Network
Change
Healthcarebuys
back pharmacy unit eRx Network
(“eRx”), a leading provider of comprehensive, innovative, and secure
data-driven solutions for pharmacies. eRx generated approximately $67M in
annual revenue for the twelve-month period ended February 29, 2020. The
transaction supports Change Healthcare’s commitment to focus on and invest in
core aspects of the business to fuel long-term growth and advance innovation.
Walmart acquires CareZone, a San Francisco, CA-based smartphone
service for managing chronic health conditions for reportedly $200M. By
working with a network of pharmacy partners, CareZone’s concierge services
assist consumers in getting their prescription medications organized and
delivered to their doorstep, making pharmacies more accessible to individuals
and families who may be homebound or reside in rural locations.
Verisk, a data
analytics provider, announced today that it has acquiredFranco Signor, a Medicare Secondary Payer
(MSP) service provider to America’s largest insurance carriers and employers.
As part of the acquisition, Franco Signor will become part of Verisk’s Claims
Partners business, a leading provider of MSP compliance and other analytic
claim services. Claims Partners and Franco Signor will be combining forces to
provide the single best resource for Medicare compliance.
Price: $160M
Rubicon Technology Partners Acquires Central Logic
Private equity firm Rubicon Technology Partners acquires
Central Logic, a provider of patient orchestration and tools to accelerate
access to care for healthcare organizations. Rubicon will be aggressively driving Central Logic’s
growth with additional cash investments into the business, with a focus
on product innovation, sales expansion, delivery and customer support, and
the pursuit of acquisition opportunities.
– Highmark Health signs six-year strategic partnership agreement
with Google Cloud to transform the health experience for patients and
caregivers through the development of Highmark Health’s new Living Health
Model
– The Living Health model is designed to eliminate
the fragmentation in health care by re-engineering the healthcare delivery
model with a more coordinated, personalized, technology-enabled experience.
Highmark Health and Google Cloud today announced a six-year strategic partnership to build and maintain the innovation engine behind Highmark’s Living Health model. The agreement includes the development of the Living Health Dynamic Platform, which will be designed to help overcome the complexities and fragmentation within the healthcare industry.
Re-engineering The Healthcare Delivery Model
Highmark’s Living Health model is designed to eliminate the fragmentation in health care by re-engineering the healthcare delivery model with a more coordinated, personalized, technology-enabled experience. In addition to offering seamless, simpler, and smarter interactions with patients, the Living Health model is designed to free clinicians from time-consuming administrative tasks while providing them with timely data and actionable information about each patient. Living Health is not just focused on improving the patient-clinician relationship, it is about changing the way health care delivery operates.
“The Living Health model is about improving each person’s health and quality of life, every day,” commented Dr. Tony Farah, executive vice president and chief medical and clinical transformation officer of Highmark Health. “The traditional health care system is too fragmented and for the most part reactive. The Living Health model takes the information and preferences that a person provides us, applies the analytics developed with Google Cloud, and creates a proactive, dynamic, and readily accessible health plan and support team that fits an individual’s unique needs.”
Living Health Model
Powered by Google Cloud
Highmark Health will lead the collaboration to build its
Living Health Dynamic Platform on Google Cloud. Key elements of the agreement
include:
– The construction of a highly secure and scalable platform
built on Google Cloud
– The application of Google Cloud’s advanced analytic and
artificial intelligence capabilities to supercharge Highmark Health’s existing
clinical and technology capabilities
– The engagement of a highly skilled professional services
team that will collaborate to drive rapid innovation
– The use of Google Cloud’s healthcare-specific solutions, including the Google Cloud Healthcare API, to enable rapid innovation, interoperability, and a seamless Living Health experience.
Highmark Health will control access and use of its patient
data using rigorous long-standing organizational privacy controls and
governance, which will be enhanced through the creation of a joint Highmark
Health-Google Cloud Data Ethics and Privacy Review Board to ensure that uses of
data are consistent with prescribed ethical principles, guidance, and customer
expectations of privacy.
Why It Matters
The strategic partnership reflects Highmark Health’s vision for a remarkable health experience by moving care and disease management of clinical conditions beyond traditional care settings through an engaging digital experience. By providing the insights needed to enable timely interventions, people will be empowered to proactively manage their health. For example, specific outcomes could include proactive intervention based on timely and individual patient data; digital disease management; easily accessible, personalized health plans; and centralized scheduling and management of care teams.
Economic Impact of Partnership
Approximately 125 new jobs are being created at Highmark Health to support the development of the Living Health Dynamic Platform, specifically in the areas of application development, cloud-based computing architectures, analytics, and user experience design.
– Cerner Corporation today announced with Xealth new
centralized digital ordering and monitoring for health systems, starting with
Banner Health, to foster digital innovation.
– Health systems can prescribe digital therapeutics, smartphones, and internet apps directly within the EHR to address areas such as chronic disease management, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery prep.
Cerner, today announced it’s building on the recent collaboration with Xealth to offer health systems new centralized digital ordering and monitoring for clients. These capabilities are designed to help health systems choose, manage, and deploy digital tools and applications while offering clinicians access to remote monitoring and more direct engagement with patients. Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital systems, is one of the first Cerner clients to use the new capabilities to benefit its clinicians and patients.
Prescribe Digital Therapeutics Via EHR
With the new capabilities, health systems can prescribe digital therapeutics, smartphones, and internet applications to address areas such as chronic disease management, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery prep. This access to a more holistic view of the organization’s digital health solutions supports the clinical decisions doctors make every day and provides real opportunities to improve medical outcomes and enhance efficiency, meet the increasing demand for telehealth and offer remote patient monitoring.
For example, the new capabilities can help simplify how
clinicians prescribe tools such as mobile mental health apps to monitor anxiety
triggers or a glucose device to help trace blood sugar levels for diabetes
patients.
Digital solutions will be available in a single location in
the electronic health record where health systems can use apps based on
clinical and financial metrics. A wide array of digital health tools is
integrated with Xealth’s offering today and the list is ever-growing. Early
examples of companies that have previously deployed in health systems using
Xealth include Babyscripts, Glooko, SilverCloud Health, Welldoc, as well as
Healthwise Inc., GetWellNetwork and ResMed that have existing relationships
with Cerner.
“As digital tools are increasingly included in care plans, health systems seek a way to organize and oversee their use across the health system. We anticipate the emergence of digital and therapeutic committees to govern digital tool selection similar to how pharmacy and therapeutic committees have historically governed medication formularies,” said David Bradshaw, senior vice president, Consumer and Employer Solutions, Cerner. “Digital health has extraordinary potential to reshape the way we care for patients and, working with Xealth, we are answering the need and helping providers create more engaging and effective patient experiences.”
Why It Matters
Digital health has great potential to make an immediate difference, especially as it relates to automating patient education, delivering virtual care, supporting telehealth, and offering remote patient monitoring. Health systems with a digital health program and strategy in place have the ability to respond faster and more efficiently.
“Now, more than ever, extending care teams to meet patients where they are is critical,” said Mike McSherry, CEO and co-founder, Xealth. “As digital health programs roll out, they should elevate both the patient and provider experience. Cerner building out a digital formulary, with Xealth at its core, is listening to its strong clinician base by delivering tools to enhance patient care, without adding additional steps for the care team.”
– Cityblock Health, a transformative, value-based healthcare provider focused on improving healthcare outcomes for marginalized communities, today announced a $160M Series C round, bringing its total raised to $300M.
– Cityblock is a care delivery trailblazer working to right the injustices of a healthcare system that cycles vulnerable communities through frequent ER visits and hospital stays. Its tech-enabled model delivers primary care, behavioral care, and social services, virtually and in-person, to the Medicaid and lower-income Medicare beneficiary communities.
– Cityblock provides social services that address core
aspects of poverty in order to improve health outcomes, including access to
nutritious food and support to safely care for oneself.
Cityblock
Health, a Brooklyn, NY-based healthcare provider for lower-income
communities, announced today the completion of a $160 million Series C funding
round and a valuation of over $1 billion. New Cityblock investor General Catalyst
led the round, with participation from crossover investor Wellington Management
and support from major existing investors, including Kinnevik AB, Maverick
Ventures, Thrive Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and more. The investment round
brings Cityblock’s total equity funding to $300 million, as they look to grow
their footprint to democratize access to community-based integrated care in a
more than $1.3 trillion market.
Care That Meets You Where You Are
Spun out of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet Company in 2017 and anchored in a first partnership with EmblemHealth, Cityblock is a transformative, value-based healthcare provider focused on improving outcomes for Medicaid and lower-income Medicare beneficiaries. The company provides medical care (both primary care and complex specialty services), behavioral health, and social services to its members virtually, in their homes, in the community, and in its neighborhood hubs. Their model reflects an underlying philosophy that improving health outcomes and minimizing systemic healthcare inequities requires fundamentals that address the root effects of poverty, like having access to nutritious food or the ability to safely care for yourself and others.
Value-Based Care Model
Cityblock leverages a value-based model, instead of a
fee-for-service basis, like most healthcare providers. Cityblock splits the
cost savings that come from better outcomes with the healthcare payer. Cityblock’s
financial structure squarely aligns the health needs of its members to continuously
deliver patient-centric care.
Cityblock is powered by Commons a groundbreaking care delivery platform that brings together distributed community-based care teams, care delivery workflows, data feeds, and multimodal member interactions. It allows social workers, pharmacists, doctors, paramedics, and our virtual care teams to all come together on the same page in real-time. With each new market we enter, our technology reinforces our care model, allowing us to serve more members while ensuring consistently high quality, empathetic, and effective care.
Integrated Care Team
Cityblock’s integrated care teams include doctors, nurses,
advanced practice clinicians, behavioral health specialists, licensed clinical
social workers, and community health partners, and leverage close partnerships
with existing healthcare providers and community-based social services
organizations.
Today, Cityblock provides care to 70,000 members in Connecticut,
New York, Massachusetts, and Washington D.C., with high member engagement and
NPS scores of high 80s to 90s across its markets. Over the past year, Cityblock
members have seen reductions in in-patient hospital admission rates and
improvements in quality outcomes, keeping people healthier and driving down
costs across the board, while more than doubling membership and revenue,
year-over-year.
The Impact of COVID Has Magnified Health Disparities
According to Cityblock, the COVID-19 pandemic has
significantly magnified health disparities highlighting three fundamental
problems:
– Inequity of
America’s social infrastructure, including the legacy of systemic racism, has
created unacceptably disparate health outcomes
– Healthcare’s volume-based, fee-for-service payment model contributes
poor outcomes, especially for marginalized communities
– The models that
have to-date addressed key components of these challenges have not successfully
scaled.
Story of Cityblock Member Sonia
The story of Sonia, a Cityblock member, is featured in the blog post announcing the raise. Counted out and considered
a ‘nuisance’ by the healthcare system, Sonia was visiting the emergency room
several times a week for care and services, resulting in poor outcomes for the
health system and for herself. Cityblock enrolled Sonia in their high-risk
short-term housing program, placing her into a hotel during the peak of her
community’s Covid-19’s outbreak. As her trust in Cityblock grew, Sonia worked
with Cityblock and its community partners to secure permanent housing. Over the
course of two years, Sonia saw a 21% reduction in hospital use and a 24%
reduction in monthly costs, and has had zero ER visits since April 2020.
“The devastating impact of COVID-19 has been a painful
reminder of the vulnerability of lower-income communities and communities of
color,” said Iyah Romm, Cityblock Health co-founder and CEO. “We cannot turn a
blind eye to a healthcare system that cycles vulnerable communities through
frequent ER visits and hospital stays. We believe that new models of care
delivery, rooted in preventative care and augmented with social services, are
one major path forward to righting the injustices of our healthcare system.
This starts with listening to our members, extends through changing payment
models to create sustainability for primary care providers and building
technology to democratize access to the care models that we are building.”
–
PointClickCare announces its intent to acquire Collective Medical to create the
largest combined acute and post-acute care network in North America for $650M.
–
Collective Medical’s platform connects more than 1,300 hospitals, thousands of
ambulatory practices and long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) providers, as well
as accountable care organizations (ACOs) and every national health plan in the
country, across a 39-state network.
– With the acquisition of Collective Medical, PointClickCare will solidify its position as a high-growth, cloud-based SaaS leader, serving a large, diversified customer base across the acute, ambulatory, post-acute, and payer spectrum.
PointClickCare
Technologies, a leader in senior care technology with a network of more
than 21,000 skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities, and home
health agencies, today announced its intent to acquire Collective Medical, a Salt Lake
City, UT-based leading network-enabled platform for real-time cross-continuum
care coordination for $650M. Together, PointClickCare and Collective Medical
will provide diverse care teams across the continuum of acute, ambulatory, and
post-acute care with point-of-care access to deep, real-time patient insights
at any stage of a patient’s healthcare journey, enabling better decision making
and improved clinical outcomes at lower cost.
The acquisition follows a partnership, created between the
companies in August 2019, which streamlined the integration of Collective
Medical’s solution for care transitions with PointClickCare’s leading
cloud-based software platform. Hundreds of PointClickCare customers are already
leveraging this connection to the Collective platform to coordinate seamless
care transitions and influence decisions at the point of care.
COVID-19 Underscores Barriers to Care Coordination
Currently, hospitals, ACOs and health plans
lack the data and tools to effectively coordinate with LTPAC providers and
other disparate points of care – an issue spotlighted further by the COVID-19 pandemic.
And despite the healthcare system’s ongoing move to value-based payment
models, barriers to care coordination
persist, especially for seniors and other complex patient populations. Through
this acquisition, the company will be uniquely positioned to address these
challenges.
PointClickCare supports a network of more than 21,000
skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities and home health agencies.
In the United States, 97 percent of all hospitals discharge patients to skilled
nursing facilities using PointClickCare. Founded in 2005, Collective Medical’s
platform connects more than 1,300 hospitals, thousands of ambulatory practices
and long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) providers, as well as accountable care
organizations (ACOs) and every national health plan in the country, across a
39-state network.
These providers come together via the Collective platform to
support patients suffering from a variety of complex conditions, including
substance use disorder, mental and behavioral health issues, and other care
needs requiring multiple interventions and transitions across disparate care
settings. The combination of PointClickCare and Collective Medical will enable
care to be more seamlessly delivered for the most complex (high-cost,
high-needs) patients, including the rapidly growing aging population.
The acquisition will connect care teams, post-acute
providers, hospitals and health plans with better data about their patients,
ultimately reducing administrative burdens and bringing down the high costs of
complex care. Providers and health plans will be empowered as they work to
solve the complexities around the senior patient population by leveraging
increased information across diagnoses groups and unprecedented access to drive
behavior change at the point of care.
Acquisition Establishes PointClickCare As Leader in Acute and Post-Acute
Care Network
With the acquisition of Collective Medical, PointClickCare
will solidify its position as a high growth, cloud-based SaaS leader, serving a
large, diversified customer base across the acute, ambulatory, post-acute, and
payer spectrum. As the shift to value-based care fuels growing market demand
for intelligence and collaboration tools, the company will be best positioned
to provide the most fully integrated set of real-time care coordination tools
across the entire continuum of care, powered by the largest network of its kind
in the U.S.
“The healthcare ecosystem is a mix of disconnected providers, systems, plans, processes and data. Healthcare costs and risk are on the rise, while patient care and provider-to-provider coordination are inconsistent. Our mission is to improve the lives of seniors, and we believe the best way to meaningfully advance this goal is by connecting disparate points of care,” says Mike Wessinger, founder and chief executive officer of PointClickCare Technologies. “Collective Medical offers the right fit of people and technology and together we will initiate a new era of data-enriched collaboration across the continuum that radically transforms how data and people are empowered to liberate health.”
The acquisition is subject to receiving regulatory
approvals, including from The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States (CFIUS), and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to be
completed by the end of December 2020.
When doctors know their patients have been to the hospital, they can act fast to provide needed support. Widespread use of hospital event notifications is associated with all kinds of health benefits, including a 10 percent decrease in readmissions for Medicare beneficiaries. These event notifications are one of the simplest, easiest (most-bipartisan!), and most impactful changes we can make to improve patient outcomes in U.S. healthcare.
To this goal, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new regulations in March that will require hospitals to share event notifications with community providers when a patient is admitted, discharged, or transferred (ADT). Hospitals have to comply by May 2021 if they want to keep getting paid by Medicare and Medicaid.
This policy will improve care, reduce costs, and save lives. It’s also simple and straightforward. CMS explains, “Lack of seamless data exchange in healthcare has historically detracted from patient care, leading to poor health outcomes, and higher costs.” ADT notifications close these gaps and many healthcare organizations have been using them for years, vastly improving care for patients.
Take the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) which has utilized ADT notifications to reduce costs and readmissions for over a decade. According to the former UHIN President and CEO, Teresa Rivera,
“This level of care coordination quite literally saves both lives and money.” She continues, “This secure and cost-effective method provides the patient’s entire medical team, regardless of where they work, with the important information they need to coordinate care. That coordination is important to reducing readmission rates, and helps health care professionals provide a better experience to patients.”
ADT notifications are a standard set of messages that most electronic health record (EHR) systems can generate with minimal set-up. In fact, in a 2019 letter from the National Association of ACOs in support of CMS’ proposal to require hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid to send event notifications, they expressed that new standards efforts are not needed for the successful implementation.
The authors wrote, “In numerous conversations with HIEs, other intermediaries and providers, we were unable to find a single example where a hospital was unable to send an ADT notification today due to lack of standards.”
But you wouldn’t know it if you listened to the misconceptions that are currently being spread to hospitals about this requirement. Here are five myths that I’ve encountered just this month:
Myth 1: The ADT notification policies are strict and difficult to comply with. Not true. CMS listened to feedback that Meaningful Use requirements were too regimented and promoted a “check the box” not “get it done” mentality. CMS purposely worked to keep these ADT requirements broad and non-prescriptive. Hospitals don’t need to comply with any specific technical standard. The CMS regulations released in March are final.
Myth 2: You have to connect to a nationwide network. Wrong. Hospitals can choose from a wide variety of regional and statewide health information exchange (HIE) partners. The policy requires “reasonable effort” to send notifications to providers in your community. An intermediary can be used to comply with the rule as long as it “connects to a wide range of recipients.” Unlike what some nationwide companies are saying, the regulations do not mandate out-of-state alerts.
Myth 3: The policy creates a big technical burden for hospitals. More than 99 percent of hospitals have EHR systems in place today, and most of those can produce standard ADT transactions with relatively minimal effort. While the time to activate ADT notifications varies, it can usually be done in as little as a day by a hospital IT team.
Myth 4: The timing isn’t right. It’s happening too fast. A global pandemic is exactly the moment when we need this kind of data sharing in our communities. With COVID-19, it is even more crucial that care teams are alerted promptly when a patient is seen in the emergency department or discharged from the hospital so that they can reach out and provide support. Regardless, CMS has given an additional six months of enforcement discretion for hospitals, pushing back the deadline to May 2021.
Myth 5: There’s no funding available for this work. Wrong again. In California and several other states, hospitals can take advantage of public funding to connect to regional HIEs that provide ADT notification services. There’s $50 million in funding available just in California.
This new policy is an exciting step forward for patients and providers. It gives primary care and post-acute providers crucial, needed information to improve patient care. Hospitals can meet the requirements with minimal burden using existing technologies. Patients will have a more seamless experience when they are at their most vulnerable.
In healthcare, it’s easy to assume that great impact requires great complexity. But time and again the opposite is true. So let’s bust the myths, get it done, and keep it simple.
About Claudia Williams
Claudia Williams is the CEO of Manifest MedEx. Previously the senior advisor for health technology and innovation at the White House, Claudia helped lead President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative. Before joining the White House, Claudia was director of health information exchange at HHS and was director of health policy and public affairs at the Markle Foundation.
– Amwell just announced some new offerings Amwell Now, Touchpoint
Tablet software, and C500 to help increase doctor-to-patient virtual
connections as patient and doctor preferences change in light of the pandemic.
– The new solutions (a quick-to-deploy video visit offering, new tablet software, and a telemedicine cart) are designed to be easy-to-use but fully integrated in the provider’s systems and secure.
Amwell, a
national telehealth
leader, today announced new connectivity, device and cart offerings, all
tailored to meet the evolving needs of care teams and patients. Spurred by the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amwell is introducing Amwell Now,
new Touchpoint
Tablet software, and the C500
telemedicine cart to help health systems and other healthcare organizations
easily leverage telehealth as a safe, quality care option.
Amwell Now
and Amwell’s latest Carepoint tablets and carts are designed to make it easier
for providers to quickly onboard patients and use virtual care. These tools can
be integrated within and scaled across organizations’ current systems and
devices, making it simple to embed and launch telehealth across various
specialties and serve an entire care organization. New offerings include:
Amwell Now
Amwell Now
enables a simple connectivity experience for patients and providers,
streamlining entry to the Amwell platform, which is purposefully designed for
healthcare interactions. Amwell Now addresses physicians’ needs for easy, fast
video visits, all on Amwell’s HIPAA compliant, clinically tailored platform. It
delivers simple reporting functionality and the ability for organizations to
put forward their own brand versus that of Amwell. Providers can deploy Amwell
Now with only a few clicks, invite patients by text or email, launch an instant
video connection, and experience an adaptable video visit workflow that is easy
for both themselves and their patients.
Touchpoint Tablet Software
Amwell’s Touchpoint Tablet software offers a new and simple
way to connect remote providers to on-site patients and providers. With it,
health systems can use (existing or new) iPads to facilitate bedside video
connectivity and collaboration in a secure, reliable, HIPAA-compliant way. The
Touchpoint Tablet software is integrated with Amwell Fleet Monitoring, enabling
health systems to track their tablets as part of their Carepoint fleet.
C500: Lightweight Telemedicine Cart
The C500
is Amwell’s latest-generation, lightweight telemedicine cart that empowers providers
to conduct efficient, high-quality remote exams across a variety of
specialties. Featuring an embedded 4K camera that responds immediately to user
commands and smart sensors that make the cart environment-aware, the C500
provides a seamless care experience that is fully integrated with the Amwell
telehealth platform.
Why It Matters
“Amid COVID-19, healthcare organizations’ needs for and expectations surrounding telehealth have fundamentally changed,” said Ido Schoenberg, Chairman and Co-CEO, Amwell. “Increasingly, virtual care is being used as core to all types of care delivery, whether it’s to safeguard care teams, limit unnecessary exposure for patients, or to prioritize the home as a go-to care setting. Our latest offerings are responsive to industry calls for simplicity, integration, and quality, and in service to the evolving landscape of healthcare and our lives overall.”
– RxVantage has acquired onPoint Oncology to provide cancer care teams with on-demand access to educational resources, reimbursement data, and analytics.
– The acquisition of onPoint Oncology builds on
RxVantage’s rapidly expanding digital offerings for providers. In April,
RxVantage launched Virtual Meetings to help providers reestablish access to
life science experts amidst the disruptions caused by COVID-19.
RxVantage, the
leading digital platform connecting healthcare providers to educational
resources and experts from life science companies, today announced the acquisition
of onPoint Oncology,
the leader in oncology reimbursement data and analytics.
The partnership ensures that care teams will have access to
onPoint’s unique revenue cycle
data and reimbursement insights as well as one-click access to educational
resources and expertise from any life science company, all through the free RxVantage digital platform.
The acquisition of onPoint Oncology builds on RxVantage’s
rapidly expanding digital offerings for providers. In April, RxVantage launched
Virtual Meetings to help providers reestablish access to life science experts
amidst the disruptions caused by COVID-19.
onPoint will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of
RxVantage. As part of the acquisition, industry veterans Tracy Lewis and Bobbi
Buell will join RxVantage leadership team. Financial details of the acquisition
were not disclosed.
RxVantage Background
Founded in 2007, RxVantage’s mission is to ensure that every
provider has the most relevant information and data on medications and medical
technologies, in order to deliver the best care to every patient. More than
6,000 medical practices across the US utilize RxVantage to connect and engage
with over 50,000 experts from life science companies.
Vanessa Kuhn, Director of Health Policy, PatientPing
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) created the Direct Contracting Model to expand opportunities for more diverse providers and healthcare organizations to participate in value-based care arrangements for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries.
The goal of the new model is to create the next generation of risk-sharing arrangements to improve outcomes for patients, lower costs, and ensure high-quality care. In developing the Direct Contracting model and associated payment options, CMMI decided to build on lessons learned from accountable care initiatives, in particular, the Next-Generation ACO (NGACO) Model, as well as Medicare Advantage and other innovative private payers. The new model specifically aims to attract providers new to Medicare FFS and Innovation Center models: “the payment model options appeal to a broad range of physician practices and other organizations because they are expected to reduce burden, support a focus on beneficiaries with complex, chronic conditions, and encourage participation from organizations that have not typically participated in Medicare FFS or CMS Innovation Center models.”
High risk equals high reward for the new Direct Contracting Entities (DCE). The payment model options that participants can choose from aim to (1) increase risk-sharing arrangements through capitated and partially capitated population-based payments, (2) include providers and organization new to Medicare FFS, (3) increase access and empower beneficiaries in their care, and (4) decrease provider burden by emphasizing only core quality metrics and making certain care delivery waivers available. Importantly, the model offers options for new entrant DCEs, meaning DCEs that have no or limited experience with Medicare FFS beneficiaries and associated Medicare risk-based contracts, as well as high needs DCEs that will focus specifically on high cost, high acuity beneficiaries.
The Direct Contracting model begins with an optional six-month implementation period on October 1, 2020, which is intended to support organizations that need additional time to align beneficiaries and optimize their care coordination and management functions. In light of COVID-19’s overwhelming impact on healthcare this year, CMMI announced the first Direct Contracting Model performance year will start April 1, 2021—a three-month delay from the original start date, with five performance years to follow. The second cohort of Direct Contracting participants will begin in January 2022.
Risk-Sharing Options:
The Innovation Center will initially test two risk-sharing options:
Professional – includes a 50% shared savings/shared losses provisions and Primary Care Capitation, a capitated, risk-adjusted monthly payment for enhanced primary care services that’s equal to seven percent of the total cost of care benchmark for enhanced primary care services
Global – is 100% full risk option with either Primary Care Capitation or Total Care Capitation, which is a capitated, risk-adjusted monthly payment for all services provided by Direct Contracting Participants and preferred providers.
CMS may test a third option, the Geographic Option, in the future, which would also be a 100% risk arrangement offering an opportunity for participants to assume the total cost of care risk for Medicare FFS beneficiaries in a defined region.
Achieving Success in the Direct Contracting Model:
Similar to existing accountable care models, critical elements to achieve success in the Direct Contracting model include a focus on workflows, systems, and partnerships that support care coordination activities, including connections to needed healthcare and wrap-around services, as well as supporting providers in attaining quality benchmarks while managing overall utilization. Underlying these capabilities is access to real-time actionable information to drive timely interventions and coordination activities.
Real-time information through admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) event notifications for Emergency Department, hospital, or post-acute encounters enable care coordination teams to deploy workflows and resources to more easily and quickly support patients. Knowing when and where patients are receiving care and understanding the clinical context for their care allows providers and care teams to more seamlessly work together to provide the right care at the right time without unnecessary or duplicative interventions. It also allows care teams to identify patients at high risk for complications, including readmissions and can prompt time-sensitive outreach and connection to additional resources.
Having access to real-time information can not only improve patient outcomes and quality but will also help to maximize payment incentives for Direct Contracting participants. Coordinated care consistently leads to shorter lengths of stay, which not only has positive quality implications for patients but also financial benefits for Direct Contracting Entities.
In addition, healthcare organizations can use real-time information to continuously strengthen and refine care network partnerships and collaborations.
Bottom Line:
To effectively manage Medicare FFS patients within the Direct Contracting Model, participants will need to coordinate with other providers across care settings and deploy timely interventions that support patients’ health and well-being. Real-time information, through ADT data, will provide participants with a new level of clinical intelligence to successfully prioritize and deploy care coordination services and ensure seamless transitions of care for patients while also creating optimal opportunities to achieve shared savings.
About Vanessa Kuhn, Ph.D
Vanessa Kuhn, Ph.D., is the Director of Policy at PatientPing, a care collaboration platform that provides real-time visibility into patient care events across the continuum. PatinetPing works with hospitals, post-acutes, health plans, ACO’s and beyond, the platform connects providers across the nation to improve patient and organizational outcomes.
– Innovaccer launches its artificial
intelligence (AI)-enabled patient relationship management solution to
streamline communication between patients and their care teams.
– The solution enables
providers and member teams to move beyond treating illness to facilitating
proactive care by building productive, long-term relationships with patients.
The absence
of widely available, easy-to-use systems that automate tasks, such as
scheduling follow-up calls, developing and distributing targeted
communications, and properly responding to questions, makes managing ongoing
relationships difficult, especially for patients with complex medical
conditions. To eliminate such communication barriers, the solution uses
powerful analytics to provide a 360-degree view of patients along with their
utilization trends to easily stratify the most vulnerable patients. With these
views in place, providers can take suitable steps and group patients based on
shared conditions or goals for improved medical management and care delivery.
Enabling
2-Way Communication at Population & Individual Levels
Built on top of Innovaccer’s proprietary FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform, the solution enables HIPAA-compliant, two-way communication channels to engage patients at both the population and individual levels. The solution enables care teams to easily manage appointments, monitor patient ratings, and feedback, and conduct one-click appointment booking and prescription renewals. With the solution, the care teams can create patient cohorts based on disease, region, and various other parameters to send bulk outreach emails. It simplifies the process of connecting healthcare teams with patients to provide administrative and clinical support.
“Patient-centricity is the essence of healthcare, and artificial intelligence has always been viewed as the answer to achieving individualized, consumer-oriented healthcare,” says Abhinav Shashank, CEO at Innovaccer. “With our patient relationship management solution, we will resolve the complexity that prevents healthcare organizations from building strong patient relationships. Our goal is to enable healthcare teams to care as one for their patients.”
Cerner announces an open call for additional health systems to sign on as testing partners of their EHR-integrated Voice Assist technology. Voice Assist will allow clinicians to interact with the EHR by just using their voice. Clinicians will be able to issue voice commands to complete a range of tasks that can save significant time and reduce the administrative burden on care teams by replacing manual data documentation.
How Voice Assist Technology Works
Using the phrase ‘Hey
Cerner,’ clinicians will be able to search for and retrieve information from
patient records, place medication orders and set up reminders. Clinicians will
be able to seamlessly switch between dictating the clinical note and navigating
the patient’s chart, improving efficiency and enhancing the health care
experience.
Examples of Voice Assist’s current functionality
include:
Chart Search
“What is the latest white blood cell
count?”
Reminders
“Remind me to call the patient in 6 months
about their high cholesterol”
“St. Joseph’s Health is excited to pilot Cerner’s Voice Assist technology, which will enable our clinicians to complete several tasks in the EHR via voice commands. We envision that this technology will be conducive to more meaningful clinician patient interaction since the clinicians will spend less time manually documenting. We hope to see improved efficiency, clinician and patient satisfaction throughout this trial period.” – Lisa Green, Director Clinical Information Systems, St. Joseph’s Health.
“At IU Health, we’re creating designated innovations centers where we trial the latest new technologies in real clinical workflows. This allows us to move new tools into our system rapidly and iteratively. We’re excited to pilot Cerner’s Voice Assist, which will allow our clinician’s to handle several tasks in the EHR with their voice. This technology will help our clinicians to focus their attention on their patients. We believe voice has the potential to increase clinician efficiency and hopefully, result in higher patient and clinician satisfaction.” – Cliff J. Hohban, Vice President, IS, Applications & PMO, IU Health
Availability
Voice Assist is supported with Nuance’s virtual assistant
capability and is expected to be widely available in 2021.
– Curation Health raises an undisclosed Series A round of funding to accelerate the adoption of its advanced clinical decision support platform.
– Curation Health provides an advanced clinical decision
support platform for providers and health plans that aids in managing risk
contracts and improving quality performance.
Curation Health, an Annapolis, MD-based advanced clinical decision support platform for value-based care, today announced the completion of Series A financing round for an undisclosed amount led by Deerfield Management Company, including participation from existing investor WindRose Health Investors.
Founded in 2018 by a team of healthcare veterans and clinicians, Curation Health helps providers and health plans effectively navigate the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care. The company’s advanced clinical decision support platform for value-based care drives more accurate risk adjustment and improved quality program performance by curating relevant insights from disparate sources and delivering them in real-time to clinicians and care teams. With Curation Health, clinicians enjoy a streamlined, comprehensive clinical documentation process that enables better clinical and financial outcomes while simultaneously reducing clinical administrative burdens on providers.
Helping Clients Battle Challenges of COVID-19
Curation Health’s solutions are proving especially helpful
to clients as COVID-19 intensifies several long-standing challenges: clinician
burnout and frustration with administrative tasks, difficulty identifying
highest-risk patients, and multiple standards and workflows that prevent
efficiencies across teams. To provide even more robust client assistance during
this time of need, Curation Health has continued to focus on expanding their
integration partnerships with leading electronic health record vendors (EHRs)
and introduced an array of platform enhancements over the last six months,
including:
– 20 percent expansion of the platform’s clinical rule set
to identify additional performance opportunities hidden within patient records
and provider information systems;
– Deployment of an accelerated implementation program,
enabling provider adoption of the platform and workflows in as few as 30 days;
and
– Multiple new features and functionality that further
expedite point-of-care clinical documentation and engage physicians in
compliance and workflow best practices
Recent Traction/Milestones
In just the last six months, Curation Health has also
experienced 125% customer growth as providers and health plans have continued
to prioritize risk management and quality amid COVID-19. New provider and
health plan customers have been compelled by Curation Health’s track record of
helping health plans and providers identify and address undiagnosed and
unmanaged chronic clinical conditions in as many as 1 out of 3 patients, while
also eliminating up to 10 minutes of provider time per patient on unnecessary
clinical administrative tasks. Curation Health will use this latest funding for
strategic hires to support continued customer growth, as well as expansion of
services to clients that rely on the company’s platform to successfully manage
risk contracts and improve quality.
“Our team at Curation is focused on helping customers drive more accurate and compliant risk adjustment and quality performance by enabling efficient pre-visit reviews, integrated point-of-care guidance, and post-visit documentation workflows. This latest infusion of funding will be used to further empower our customers’ value-based care teams with even stronger tools and support,” said Kevin Coloton, founder and CEO of Curation Health.
– Today Vocera Communications acquires EASE Applications,
a provider of a secure communication platform and mobile application that
delivers updates, messages to patients’ loved ones, during surgeries and at
other times.
– The Orlando-based EASE offers a cloud-based service
that is built to improve the patient experience by enabling friends and family
members to receive timely updates about the progress of loved ones in the
hospitals. Care team members can send a patient’s loved ones HIPAA-compliant
texts, photos, and video updates putting them at ease and saving valuable time.
Vocera Communications,
Inc., a provider of clinical communication and workflow solutions,
today announced that it has acquired EASE (Electronic Access to Surgical
Events), based in Orlando, FL. EASE offers a cloud-based communication
platform and mobile application built to improve the patient
experience by enabling friends and family members to receive timely updates
about the progress of their loved one in the hospital. The EASE app
enables nurses and other care team members to send HIPAA-compliant texts,
photos, and video updates to patients’ loved ones, putting them at ease and
saving valuable time.
Patients can add friends and family members to their distribution list; and with a simple tap, caregivers can keep them informed and ease their concerns. Messages, pictures, and videos sent disappear 60 seconds after being viewed, and nothing is saved on the mobile device, providing an additional layer of security and privacy. The application also provides secure two-way video conferencing between patients’ families and care teams. Additionally, EASE enables care team members to customize in-app surveys, offering a quick way to track and improve patient engagement and satisfaction in real-time, and giving feedback and support for the caregivers.
Return on Investment
With more than 1.6 million sent messages, the EASE
application has demonstrated improved patient and family satisfaction and
reduced the number of phone calls from loved ones to the hospital. In one study
with approximately 2,500 family members, 98% said that EASE reduced their
anxiety, and 81% reported that the availability of EASE would influence their
choice of hospital. Additionally, patient satisfaction scores increased by an
average of 6% for patients who used EASE compared to patients who did not use
the application.
Issuance of Restricted Stock Units
As part of the onboarding process, Vocera will issue
restricted stock units totaling approximately 60,000 shares of Vocera common
stock to approximately eleven employees of EASE. These restricted stock units
will vest over three years after the closing and will be made from an
inducement plan adopted by the company’s board of directors pursuant to the
inducement exemption provided under the NYSE listing rules.
– Bridge Connector raises $25.5 million in Series B funding to advance interoperability layer for healthcare organizations as demand for integrated health data intensifies during COVID-19 pandemic.
– The investment will support the growth of Destinations,
the company’s new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that connects
health data systems using use-case-based interoperability blueprints to speed
integrations with major vendors.
Bridge Connector,
a Nashville, TN-based interoperability company changing the way health care
communicates, today announced it has raised $25.5 million in Series B funding led
by Axioma Ventures. The round was also joined by all existing investors,
including veteran investor Jeff Vinick, and brings Bridge Connector’s total
funding to over $45 million.
COVID-19 Underscores Growing Demand for Integrated Health
Data
The last decade has seen an explosion of digital health platforms and the U.S. health care system has taken incremental steps toward achieving interoperability between them. In March, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued new rules that force formerly closed vendor solutions to become interoperable.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the urgent need for data liquidity as healthcare providers across the country have struggled to share essential patient information and provide comprehensive care via remote delivery methods such as telehealth. In the face of the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on minority communities, the industry has also recognized the critically important role that social determinants of health — the environments in which we are born, live and work — play in our overall well-being and the need to make this information available to health care providers.
A True Interoperability Layer for Healthcare
Founded in 2017, Bridge Connector provides a suite of vendor-agnostic integration solutions and a full-service delivery model, helping health care vendors, providers, and payers more easily share data between disparate systems, such as electronic health records (EHRs) or patient engagement solutions. The company’s technology is designed to democratize health care by allowing organizations of any size to equitably connect data systems and empower care teams with the most accurate patient data in real-time. Unlike other health care interoperability vendors, Bridge Connector’s unique approach does not lock customers into a forced data model or proprietary APIs, instead of employing a vendor-agnostic integration layer that works across data models without the need for standardization.
The investment will further support the company’s increasing
market share in healthcare interoperability and growth of Destinations, a new
integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that connects health data systems
using use-case-based interoperability blueprints to speed integrations with
major vendors.
Recent Integrations with Key HIT Stakeholders
The new funding comes shortly after Bridge Connector finalized various collaborations with some of the most influential stakeholders in health IT, including Epic, Allscripts, and Salesforce, as well as other system integrators such as MuleSoft. Those collaborations represent calculated steps toward creating a centralized hub of integration solutions for all data platforms that any health care provider or payer can access. The average hospital today uses approximately 16 disparate electronic health records platforms that limit data sharing within the walls of a single hospital, let alone between separate hospitals.
– Philips today announced the launch of its Rapid
Equipment Deployment Kits, which provide doctors with critical care patient
monitoring solutions they can quickly implement in the ICU. The Rapid Equipment
Deployment Kits use advanced patient monitoring technology to enable care teams
to swiftly scale up critical care capabilities within just a few hours, and
help hospitals meet on-demand access during these pressing times of COVID-19.
– Arriving at hospitals fully configured and
ready-to-deploy, the kits are pre-built and pre-packed into sturdy cases and
can be transferred from hospital to hospital as needed. After a crisis/surge
has passed, the kits are disinfected and stored to have available in
preparation for future emergencies.
Royal Philips, today introduced its Rapid Equipment Deployment Kit for ICU ramp-ups, allowing doctors, nurses, technicians, and hospital staff to quickly support critical care patient monitoring capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently successfully in use in the first health systems across the US, the Rapid Equipment Deployment Kit combines Philips advanced patient monitoring technology with predictive patient-centric algorithms enabling care teams to quickly scale up critical care patient monitoring capabilities within a few hours. As health systems in the U.S. continue to experience surges in critical care and emergency care demand related to the COVID-19 crisis, the kit provides hospitals a way to quickly and easily expand their critical care capacity.
The Rapid Equipment Deployment Initiative for COVID-19
Response
The Philips Rapid Equipment Deployment Kit is a fully configured and ready-to-deploy ICU patient monitoring solution, which includes 20 ICU monitors, 20 measurement servers and one central management monitoring station. The kits are pre-built, pre-configured and pre-packed into sturdy cases that can elevate a hospital’s general care area to a critical care level in a matter of hours. Kits are complete with step-by-step instructions allowing the pre-configured system to be deployed by hospital staff, with remote technical and clinical support from Philips. Kits can be transferred from hospital to hospital as needed. Once a crisis/surge passes, the kits are disinfected, packed up and stored to have available in preparation for future emergencies.
Why It Matters
“The current health crisis has demonstrated a clear need for
us to deliver innovative solutions to our customers that provide a complete
critical care monitoring solution with all of the equipment they require on
demand. This eliminates the need to source and configure individual pieces of
high-demand equipment during a crisis,” said Peter Ziese, General Manager of
Monitoring Analytics at Philips. “To help ensure economical and more
efficient use of hospital resources, the Rapid Equipment Deployment Kits
provide the speed, flexibility and ease of implementation for advanced critical
care patient monitoring that many of our customers must have during this most
pressing time.”
In June, Philips announced it had received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA for Philips’
IntelliVue Patient Monitors MX750/MX850 and its IntelliVue Active
Displays AD75/AD85, for use in the US during the COVID-19 health emergency.
These patient monitoring solutions support infection-control protocols and
remotely provide critical patient information when caring for hospitalized
COVID-19 patients. The MX750 and MX850 monitors are the latest additions
to Philips’ portfolio of integrated patient monitoring solutions to help
support improved clinical and operational workflows. Updated features, include
enhancements to monitor and assess clinical and network device performance, and
additional functionalities to strengthen cybersecurity.
– Eden Health raises $25M to give employers and
commercial real estate owners and operators the ability to offer medical care on-site,
near-site, and virtually.
– Eden’s membership model makes high-quality healthcare an affordable benefit for the average employer, with low to no out-of-pocket costs for their employees.
– Since the first signs of the US coronavirus outbreak in
early February, Eden Health has worked with Boylan Bottling, Connell, Convene, Emigrant
Bank,Golf Magazine,
Harry’s, Kramer Levin, Newscred, evidence-based, medically-informed plans and
protocols for supporting essential workers and bringing workforces back. And
they’ve embedded dedicated, on-demand doctors (called Medical Directors) in the
C-Suites of several customers.
Eden Health, a New
York City-based national medical practice, today announced it has raised $25
million in Series B funding led by Flare
Capital Partners with participation from principals from Stone Point Capital, a private equity
firm that focuses on the financial services industry including the HR benefits,
insurance and real estate sectors. Existing investors who participated in the
Series B round include Greycroft, PJC, Max
Ventures and Aspect
Ventures. The oversubscribed round brings Eden Health’s total
raise to $39M.
Founded in 2016, Eden Health is known for its innovative
direct-to-employer healthcare delivery model, bringing in-person and virtual
healthcare together to deliver an exceptional patient experience to the
employees of mid-market companies. Eden Health empowers employers to
supercharge their benefits packages whether or not they are self-insured.
Designed to meet the needs of companies of all sizes, Eden Health lets them
fill gaps in their employees care with a fully integrated healthcare option.
Eden Health membership services are not tethered to open
enrollment, meaning employees and their families can join at any time and begin
using services immediately. And one of Eden Health’s core services is insurance
navigation, to make sure employees get the care they need without surprise
costs Although Eden Health’s approach is direct-to-employer, its mission is to
ensure that superior care is as widely available as possible.
Eden Health’s medical practice provides members with a
dedicated Care Team. Care Teams are composed of highly credentialed clinicians
delivering evidence-based, top-quality care. Each Care Team offers digital care
around the clock, same-day in-person primary care, behavioral health services
and benefits navigation. Employees interact with the same dedicated Care Team,
regardless of whether they are communicating virtually or in-person. Where
necessary, Eden Health consults specialists to determine needs, before
connecting employee members with fully-vetted, cost-effective in-network
specialists.
Recent Traction/Milestones
Over the past four years, Eden Health has become a trusted
benefits partner for more than 33,000 employees, spanning more than 100
employers across a broad range of industries, including finance, retail, real
estate and technology. Since the very first signs of the US coronavirus
outbreak in early February, Eden Health has worked with Boylan Bottling, Connell, Convene, Emigrant Bank,Golf Magazine, Harry’s, Kramer Levin, Newscred, and others
to roll out evidence-based, medically-informed plans and protocols to support
workforce health. It has guided employers, property owners and workers through
the outbreak using real-time monitoring, proactive outreach, and team-based
care. And as employers and property owners began to phase workforces back into
offices and worksites, Eden Health introduced a comprehensive back-to-work
program spanning COVID-19 screening, virtual primary care, PCR testing,
on-site antibody testing, immediate triage and patient consults.
Through the crisis, Eden Health customers have also chosen
to embed dedicated Eden Health Medical Directors into their c-suites to manage
employee population health. Thanks in large part to early monitoring and proactive
protocols to slow the spread, Eden Health employers have been able to maintain
high levels of productivity, deploying essential workers safely while
protecting their health and the health of fellow employees.
– Lumeon, the leader in care pathway orchestration
announced it has raised $30M in Series D funding to extend the reach of its
Care Pathway Management (CPM) platform.
– The platform empowers providers to improve care
quality, deliver better outcomes, reduce costs, and ultimately develop and
scale new models of care delivery – particularly important right now as
COVID-19 accelerates the technology-driven transformation of healthcare.
Lumeon, a Boston, MA-based provider of care pathway orchestration, today
announced that it has closed $30M in Series D funding led by new investors
Optum Ventures and Endeavour Vision, with participation from current investors
LSP, MTIP, IPF Partners, Gilde and Amadeus Capital Partners. The investment
will enable the company to extend the reach of its Care Pathway Management
(CPM) platform, which helps healthcare providers automate their patient care coordination
to improve care quality, deliver better outcomes and reduce costs.
Why Care Pathways?
With proven ability to reduce unwarranted
variation and lower the overall cost of care delivery, care pathways are
an increasingly attractive proposition for healthcare providers.
The challenge, however, has always been to take paper-based pathways off the
page and into operational reality. This means being able to direct tasks and
coordinate care across clinicians, ward managers, nurses, patient educators –
the entire team responsible for successful care delivery – even the patient
themselves.
Deliver Engaging Virtual Care Journeys
Founded in 2005, Lumeon’s platform connects
the care journey across the care continuum, operationalizing care plans beyond
the four walls of your hospital. Lumeon’s CPM platform
uses real-time data to dynamically guide patients and care teams along their
care journeys. By automating, orchestrating and virtualizing care delivery
across care settings, Lumeon’s solutions allow health systems to operate with
predictability and efficiency, delivering optimal care to each patient while
substantially lowering costs for healthcare providers.
Lumeon’s CPM platform
integrates with all electronic health record (EHR) systems in addition to
incorporating required clinical and administrative data from point solutions
and devices, addressing the fragmented nature of healthcare technology and the
challenge of interoperability. By extending beyond the confines of a healthcare
provider’s EHR, Lumeon’s configurable solutions maximize current investments as
organizations evolve their care delivery models.
“While the markets for data analytics, clinical decision support and patient engagement are well established, what is missing today is the ability to effectively connect them to solve the problem of personalizing care delivery in a scalable way,” said Lumeon Founder and CEO Robbie Hughes. “The ‘last mile’ that turns the insight into action is the hardest part for health systems, and is the core of the Lumeon proposition.”
– Cerner and Xealth announce a collaboration to foster
tighter physician-patient relationships by giving patients easier access to
digital health tools.
– These assets will be prescribed directly within the physician’s EHR workflow to manage conditions including chronic diseases, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery preparation.
– Cerner and LRVHealth have together invested $6 million
in Xealth as part of this agreement, with Cerner and Xealth planning to jointly
develop digital health solutions that extend the value of the EHR.
– Already integrated into Epic, the integration puts
Xealth in the EHR of record for more than half of the U.S. hospital systems.
Xealth, a Seattle, WA-based company enabling digital
health at scale, and Cerner
Corporation, today announced a collaboration that will bring digital
health tools to clinicians and patients to improve the healthcare experience.
As part of this agreement, Cerner and Xealth plan to jointly develop digital health
solutions that extend the value of the electronic health record
(EHR). Already integrated into Epic, this integration puts Xealth in
the EHR of record for more than half of the U.S. hospital systems.
In addition, Cerner
and LRVHealth have together invested $6M in Xealth. Cerner joins Xealth
investors including Atrium Health, Cleveland Clinic, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Providence
Ventures and UPMC as well as McKesson, Novartis, Philips, and ResMed.
Xealth/Cerner EHR
Integration Details
At its core, the
relationship between Xealth and Cerner aims to give patients their own digital
data so they can be more engaged in their treatment plans. The Xealth platform
is designed to help clinicians easily integrate, prescribe and monitor digital health
tools for patients from one location in the EHR. Care teams will be able to
order solutions directly from the EHR to manage conditions including chronic
diseases, behavioral health, maternity care and surgery preparation. Incorporating Xealth into Cerner’s technology and patient portal
provides easier access to personal health information and gives care teams the
ability to monitor patient engagement with the tools and analyze the effects of
increased engagement on their healthcare and recovery.
The collaboration
between Cerner and Xealth will provide care teams and patients convenience and
help improve care accessibility. Better communications and engagement with key
members of their care team will create an experience that is connected across
settings before, during and after a care encounter.
Why It Matters
During the recent
surge of COVID-19 across the world, tools that automate patient education,
deliver virtual care, support telehealth and offer remote patient monitoring
have become even more prominent, creating new methods to inform care decisions
and keep care teams and patients connected.
“Today, we have the unique opportunity to improve people’s lives by allowing active participation in their own treatment plans,” said David Bradshaw, Senior Vice President, Consumer and Employer Solutions, Cerner. “Patients want greater access to their health information and are motivated to help care teams find the most appropriate road to recovery. Xealth and Cerner are making it easier and more convenient for patients and clinicians to accelerate healthcare in a more consumer-centric experience.”
Incorporating Xealth’s
digital health platform with clinician recommendations has been shown to
increase patient engagement rates as compared to a direct to consumer approach.
The company powers more than 30 digital health solutions, connecting patients
with educational content, remote patient monitoring, virtual care platforms,
e-commerce product recommendations and other services needed to improve health
outcomes.
“In order for digital health to have lasting impact, it needs to show value and ease for both the care team and patient,” said Mike McSherry, CEO and Co-Founder of Xealth. “We strongly believe that technology should nurture deeper patient-provider relationships and facilitate information sharing across systems and the care settings. It is exciting work with Cerner to simplify meaningful digital health for its health partners.”
“Combining our expertise in developing interactive digital solutions that improve the patient experience with Cerner’s world-class platforms creates immense opportunity for our clients to better meet the needs of today’s highly connected healthcare consumer,” concluded McSherry.
It wasn’t that long ago that people went to the bank on a Friday to cash their paper paychecks. Maybe they’d put some in checking and take some out in cash. They’d go to the grocery store over the weekend and maybe write one of those checks. Everyone always had to have a pen with them.
It wasn’t that long ago that people would call the ticket agent and discuss flight options for vacation. They’d send a paper ticket in the mail. When it was time to go, people would carry that ticket with them through the airport and onto the plane. (Of course, people could also keep their shoes on and could bring as much shampoo as their heart desired).
It wasn’t that long ago that if someone needed surgery, they’d have to call to schedule it. The hospital would call again the day before to tell them what time to come. People would travel there, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and be wheeled around to several different areas and talk to several different people. Eventually, they’d wake up post-surgery in a hallway with a bunch of other people and hopefully a family member. They’d wheel the person to their room where they’d have a small TV for entertainment, a dry erase board with some names on it and maybe the room number, and a stack of papers on the bedside table – cafeteria menus, instructions, important phone numbers and the like.
Oh wait – that time is now.
Better, more convenient systems are a no brainer for industries like banking and travel, but the hospital experience is still rife with paper handouts, basic cable packages, and manual dry erase boards with markers that don’t work half the time. Patients shouldn’t settle for that, and in this era when COVID-19 has led healthcare to embrace lots of other conveniences (like telehealth for remote doctors’ appointments), they won’t settle for it anymore.
Imagine a new kind of hospital room. While nobody should take a patient’s TV away, there’s so much more that can be done with patient TV. Most people have smart TVs in their homes that serve as a complete hub for their entertainment. Add a smartphone to the mix, and people can do nearly anything from their couch. A hospital bed should be no different.
Since EMRs became mandatory years ago, hospitals have relied on them as the source of truth for patient records and information. But EMRs paired with additional technology can do so much more. Now, hospitals can pull information from the EMR to personalize the patient experience. Imagine a hospital room TV greeting you by name with soothing music and welcoming imagery. Imagine the pillow speaker handset transforming into a smart TV remote where you can peruse movies on demand, live TV, or Netflix. Take it a step further – imagine that TV can talk to your EMR, so you can watch educational content just for you based on your condition, so you can learn about your care, treatment, and how to recover when you go home.
Imagine adding more systems. Integrate dietary systems (in concert with the EMR) to let patients order their meals without sifting through paper and dialing phone numbers – as they do at home when they’re using DoorDash. Imagine letting patients dim the lights, request a blanket, or turn the thermostat up if they’re cold, without climbing out of bed and risking a fall. Imagine letting patients use their phones to input important information for the care team to know, or to video chat with a “visitor,” even during a pandemic when in-person visits aren’t allowed – even if the person on the other end doesn’t have a Zoom account or an iPhone for FaceTime.
Imagine never seeing a dry erase board in a patient room again. Instead, a digital display automatically updates with all the patient’s latest information, based on what’s in the EMR.
Imagine up-to-the-minute precautions displayed instantly and digitally outside each patient’s room so care teams know what PPE they need before they go in.
Technology exists to do all these things. The early adopters are already seeing increased patient satisfaction scores that seem to consistently climb. Beyond that, especially now when nurse retention and preventing care team burnout are paramount, these technologies alleviate the burden on them. Streamlining, digitizing, and virtualizing all aspects of care and a patient’s time in the hospital benefits staff, too. When nurses don’t have to search all over to find markers that work or run back and forth to the printer to get pages of hand-outs for patients, they can spend more quality face time with patients and operate at top of license.
When patient education is delivered in the right way, at the right time to the bedside, you’re not just saving printer paper – you’re giving patients the tools to succeed at home and avoid costly readmissions. It’s time to reimagine healthcare, and there’s no better time than now when the window to adopt new technology is wide open.
About Jeff Fallon
Jeff Fallon brings over 30 years of experience in healthcare technology, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and diagnostics to eVideon as their Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining eVideon, he helped distinguished organizations such as Johnson & Johnson and patient experience technology companies forge innovative strategic relationships and strategies.
– Cerner expands its AI collaboration with Nuance to
provide joint customers with more advanced natural language virtual assistant
technology to navigate electronic health records (EHRs) using just
their voice, giving clinicians more time to spend with patients and less time
with a computer.
– As part of the expanded collaboration, Nuance will
offer Cerner deeply embedded virtual assistant technology that
delivers sophisticated conversational dialogues and skills to automate
high-value clinical tasks inside Cerner Millennium, such as chart
search, navigation, intelligent computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and
scheduling.
Nuance®
Communications, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its
long-standing AI collaboration with Cerner
to include the integration of Nuance’s virtual assistant technology into
the Cerner Millennium® electronic health record
(EHR). Building upon the existing integration between Nuance’s Dragon®
Medical platform and Cerner Millennium, joint clients can utilize
Nuance’s advanced natural language virtual assistant technology to navigate the
EHR using just their voice, giving clinicians more time to spend with their
patients and less time with their computer.
COVID-19 Underscores Importance of Addressing Physician
Burnout
The expanded Nuance-Cerner relationship is driven by the healthcare industry’s need to mitigate what the World Medical Association is calling a “pandemic of physician burnout” with 51 percent of physicians reporting frequent or constant feelings of burnout. This is caused by a staggering administrative workload of electronic paperwork to document patient care and to meet requirements for insurance coverage, financial reimbursement, and medicolegal liability protection.
Research shows that more than 80 percent of physicians believe virtual assistants in health care can reduce the burden on care teams and improve the patient experience. Nuance’s virtual assistant technology helps physicians rapidly accomplish tasks and communicate more naturally while allowing them to use specialized medical terminology across a range of devices and applications with high accuracy.
Virtual Assistant Platform Integration Benefits
Nuance’s deeply embedded virtual assistant technology delivers sophisticated conversational dialogues and skills that automate high-value clinical tasks inside Cerner Millennium, such as chart search, navigation, intelligent computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and scheduling. Nuance technology’s high accuracy rates, rich set of voice-activated skills and ability to understand the user’s intent in context provides higher levels of workflow automation, and more efficient and complete documentation of patient care. Additionally, Nuance’s pre-built, HIPAA-compliant natural language understanding models and cloud platform will support Cerner to deploy the solution quickly and easily to joint clients.
“Together with Cerner, we’re bringing the next level of conversational AI directly to our joint clients with the goals of improving patient experiences, combating clinician burnout, and reducing costs,” said Joe Petro, CTO, Nuance. “Building on our Dragon Medical platform, already used by over 550,000 physicians in the U.S. alone, our new virtual assistant technology will help deliver solutions that automate time-consuming tasks, eliminate inefficiencies, and bring clinical intelligence and better decision-support to clinicians at the point of care.”
Availability
Select joint Cerner and Nuance clients can expect
to start deploying this integrated virtual assistant technology late this
year.
Scott Heather, VP of Professional Services US, Bits In Glass
COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on all of us, and it’s likely that many aspects of our daily lives will never return to “normal.” In the same way that we scoff at the notion of driving cars without seatbelts today, we’ll likely feel the same about many other previously normal things we did pre-pandemic.
This will most certainly include the way we manage high-risk spaces where there’s close contact and a higher than average risk of infection – like hospitals, airports, retail stores, restaurants, gyms, and more. These spaces could require the addition of constant monitoring using sensors and IoT devices to track people, temperatures, movements, and items. This would make it possible to monitor environmental health risks in real-time.
This approach may sound extreme at first, but in places such as hospitals, it becomes crucial, because these spaces host vulnerable populations, infected individuals, as well as healthcare workers. The importance of keeping healthcare workers healthy has never been more top of mind. With shortages of masks, gloves, and other protective equipment, as well as international efforts to “flatten the curve,” we now recognize a critical weakness in the healthcare system as it has been forced to scale in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Healthcare workers are the most likely to be infected with COVID-19 within a healthcare facility. Between February 12 and April 9, among 315,531 COVID-19 cases reported to the CDC, 9,282 or (19%) were identified as healthcare professionals. Additionally, 20% of positive tests in Ohio,have been healthcare workers. This can be especially dangerous because symptoms may not appear for up to two weeks, meaning healthcare workers can transmit the virus to non-COVID-19 patients who have pre-existing health conditions.
Aside from maintaining a plentiful inventory of protective equipment such as masks and gloves, technological advancements can create “smart” hospitals with the ability to sense, analyze, and enable real-time human-machine collaboration to take immediate action on events. “Smart” hospitals provide a proactive and accurate way to maintain cleanliness standards, adhere to sanitation protocols, and monitor patients, employees, and assets to keep everyone safe.
Stopping the spread
While COVID-19 patients in hospitals are often secluded to private rooms, they may need to be brought to other areas for imaging or other services, potentially contaminating other areas. COVID-19 spreads primarily from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth, which are expelled when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks. These droplets can be inhaled by healthy individuals, but they can also land on objects and surfaces such as doorknobs and handrails, and it’s possible to become infected by touching these surfaces and then touching one’s eyes, nose, or mouth.
We know that in hospitals it’s crucial to ensure that there is an established plan to keep infected individuals from having unnecessary contact with non-infected individuals. It’s also important that there’s a thorough cleaning and disinfecting of spaces, facilities, or machines for patients with non-COVID-19 care needs.
Contact tracing becomes extra important when an infection is present, but in practice can be challenging. Typically, staff must work with the patient to help them recall everyone they’ve had close contact with during the time they may have been infectious. This can be difficult and is easy for patients to forget encounters, particularly as they come down with the infection.
To improve this process in high-risk areas like hospitals, an electronic real-time tracking system can be used using sensors and cameras throughout a hospital to keep track of who and what each person comes into contact with. This could be other patients, equipment, or simply the areas they have spent time throughout the facility to help reduce the risk of contamination and infection spread.
Further, the system could also be configured so that when a patient comes in contact with a piece of equipment, an alert such as a text message or email can be triggered to ensure that the equipment is cleaned. This can also be performed retroactively if the patient is only known to be infected after the fact.
Sanitation and physical distancing
Sanitation and physical distancing have been a cornerstone of successful virus containment within our communities. So naturally, this responsibility must be extended to healthcare facilities to protect both healthcare workers and our most vulnerable. Hospitals can measure the effectiveness of protocols and identify areas of the facility that require additional security or increased signage.
IoT devices such as bio-stickers can be used to capture a patient’s temperature or other vitals to be streamed to the care teams’ laptops, tablets, or mobile devices. This reduces the need for staff to come in physical contact with infected patients.
Tracking physical distancing and facial covering requirements can be done using cameras, whereas hand sanitization compliance can be tracked by relating staff sensor locations to IoT-enabled dispensers. Based on individual hospital policies and CDC recommended guidelines, when a staff member comes within proximity of a hand sanitizer dispenser in key areas requiring sanitation, sensors within the dispenser can trigger an alert to be sent to the employee’s device reminding them to sanitize their hands. Sinks and handwashing stations however would require video or other visual tracking to verify compliance.
This global COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to ways we need to better support our hospitals and the essential frontline workers risking their lives to keep us healthy and safe. As technology and digital solutions are part of our everyday lives, they are also here to help ease the burden on our healthcare system and build smarter, more connected hospitals that will ultimately benefit all of us, every day.
About Scott Heather
Scott Heather, Vice President of Professional Services US, Bits In Glass
As Bits In Glass’ Vice President of Professional Services in the US and Practice Lead for Blue Prism and VANTIQ, Scott is responsible for the overall performance and execution of these lines of business, as well as the strategy for implementation and customer success. He has over 19 years of Information Technology experience with a focus on deploying business process solutions on a variety of enterprise software platforms.
– Philips receives 510(k) clearance from the FDA for its pre-hospital
wireless monitoring solution (Tempus LS- Manual), now offering its remote
monitor and defibrillator solution (Tempus ALS) to EMS customers in the U.S.
– Solution delivers real-time bidirectional data transfer
for remote patient monitoring, giving EMS responders a new approach to
pre-hospital care.
Philips, today announced the launch of its
remote monitoring and defibrillator solution (Tempus
ALS) for pre-hospital settings in the U.S. The solution is a complete
end-to-end system that combines innovative hardware and advanced software to
expand the pre-hospital scope of care for first responders. The professional
defibrillator (Tempus LS-Manual) is the final element of the overall
solution to receive 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and is now available for sale in the U.S. market.
Tempus
ALS with IntelliSpace Corsium
As a
unique modular platform, the remote monitoring and defibrillator solution (Tempus
ALS) consists of a remote portable vital signs patient monitor (Tempus Pro),
and remote professional defibrillator (Tempus LS-Manual). While the monitor and
defibrillator can be used separately, the devices also connect wirelessly to
share data and transfer vitals, waveforms and images into Philips web-based
software platform (IntelliSpace Corsium). The software platform provides
robust, real-time transfer of clinical data and events, interactive ECG
measurement, two-way communication and more, enabling rapid clinical and
transport decision support and seamless electronic patient care recording
(ePCR) integration outside the hospital in emergency settings.
“In emergency situations, where seconds count, having access to advanced patient data collection and sharing and real-time secure data streaming, can help inform confident treatment and transport decisions outside the hospital,” said Arman Voskerchyan, General Manager of Therapeutic Care at Philips. “The integrated remote monitoring and defibrillator solution combined with our web-based software platform will help front line responders provide emergency care, diagnosis, and treatment – including defibrillation therapy, data management, and clinical and operational efficiency features – in a fully integrated solution.”
Emergencies and care events outside the hospital continue to rise, with an estimated 240 million calls made to 9-1-1 in the U.S. each year. In addition to the stress of the unknown and what to expect at the scene of the call, emergency medical providers must deal with manual handling issues. Equipment carried is heavy, often damaged due to use in unpredictable conditions, and has limited data connectivity – inhibiting the ability for on-scene support. In an effort to address these challenges, both elements of the Philips remote monitoring and defibrillator (Tempus ALS) solution are designed with a small, rugged exterior and a long-lasting battery to allow emergency medical providers to focus on caring for the patient without the hassle or distraction of bulky equipment.
Philips leadership in Emergency Care solutions
Earlier this year, Philips launched its new emergency care
informatics suite in the U.S. market, previously in use in Europe, helping
care teams spot life-threatening conditions remotely, improve accuracy of
support from on-scene crews, and enhance tailoring of in-hospital care based on
pre-hospital physiology. In October 2019, Philips announced a
first-of-its-kind collaboration with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex (AAKSS) where
helicopter Emergency Service (HEMS) teams were able to live stream patient
medical information from the scene to the hospital through the Philips
pre-hospital solution. Philips offers a wide range of emergency care offerings,
including automated external defibrillators (AEDs), advanced life support
monitors, and more.
Scott Heather, Vice President of Professional Services US, Bits In Glass
COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on all of us, and it’s likely that many aspects of our daily lives will never return to “normal.” In the same way that we scoff at the notion of driving cars without seatbelts today, we’ll likely feel the same about many other previously normal things we did pre-pandemic.
This will most certainly include the way we manage high-risk spaces where there’s close contact and a higher than average risk of infection – like hospitals, airports, retail stores, restaurants, gyms, and more. These spaces could require the addition of constant monitoring using sensors and IoT devices to track people, temperatures, movements, and items. This would make it possible to monitor environmental health risks in real-time.
This approach may sound extreme at first, but in places such as hospitals, it becomes crucial, because these spaces host vulnerable populations, infected individuals, as well as healthcare workers. The importance of keeping healthcare workers healthy has never been more top of mind. With shortages of masks, gloves, and other protective equipment, as well as international efforts to “flatten the curve,” we now recognize a critical weakness in the healthcare system as it has been forced to scale in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Healthcare workers are the most likely to be infected with COVID-19 within a healthcare facility. Between February 12 and April 9, among 315,531 COVID-19 cases reported to the CDC, 9,282 or (19%) were identified as healthcare professionals. Additionally, 20% of positive tests in Ohio,have been healthcare workers. This can be especially dangerous because symptoms may not appear for up to two weeks, meaning healthcare workers can transmit the virus to non-COVID-19 patients who have pre-existing health conditions.
Aside from maintaining a plentiful inventory of protective equipment such as masks and gloves, technological advancements can create “smart” hospitals with the ability to sense, analyze, and enable real-time human-machine collaboration to take immediate action on events. “Smart” hospitals provide a proactive and accurate way to maintain cleanliness standards, adhere to sanitation protocols, and monitor patients, employees, and assets to keep everyone safe.
Stopping the spread
While COVID-19 patients in hospitals are often secluded to private rooms, they may need to be brought to other areas for imaging or other services, potentially contaminating other areas. COVID-19 spreads primarily from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth, which are expelled when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks. These droplets can be inhaled by healthy individuals, but they can also land on objects and surfaces such as doorknobs and handrails, and it’s possible to become infected by touching these surfaces and then touching one’s eyes, nose, or mouth.
We know that in hospitals it’s crucial to ensure that there is an established plan to keep infected individuals from having unnecessary contact with non-infected individuals. It’s also important that there’s thorough cleaning and disinfecting of spaces, facilities, or machines for patients with non-COVID-19 care needs.
Contact tracing becomes extra important when an infection is present, but in practice can be challenging. Typically, staff must work with the patient to help them recall everyone they’ve had close contact with during the time they may have been infectious. This can be difficult and is easy for patients to forget encounters, particularly as they come down with the infection.
To improve this process in high-risk areas like hospitals, an electronic real-time tracking system can be used using sensors and cameras throughout a hospital to keep track of who and what each person comes into contact with. This could be other patients, equipment, or simply the areas they have spent time throughout the facility to help reduce the risk of contamination and infection spread.
Further, the system could also be configured so that when a patient comes in contact with a piece of equipment, an alert such as a text message or email can be triggered to ensure that the equipment is cleaned. This can also be performed retroactively if the patient is only known to be infected after the fact.
Sanitation and physical distancing
Sanitation and physical distancing have been a cornerstone of successful virus containment within our communities. So naturally this responsibility must be extended to healthcare facilities to protect both healthcare workers and our most vulnerable. Hospitals can measure the effectiveness of protocols and identify areas of the facility that require additional security or increased signage.
IoT devices such as bio-stickers can be used to capture a patient’s temperature or other vitals to be streamed to the care teams’ laptops, tablets, or mobile devices. This reduces the need for staff to come in physical contact with infected patients.
Tracking physical distancing and facial covering requirements can be done using cameras, whereas hand sanitization compliance can be tracked by relating staff sensor locations to IoT-enabled dispensers. Based on individual hospital policies and CDC recommended guidelines, when a staff member comes within proximity of a hand sanitizer dispenser in key areas requiring sanitation, sensors within the dispenser can trigger an alert to be sent to the employee’s device reminding them to sanitize their hands. Sinks and handwashing stations however would require video or other visual tracking to verify compliance.
This global COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to ways we need to better support our hospitals and the essential frontline workers risking their lives to keep us healthy and safe. As technology and digital solutions are part of our everyday lives, they are also here to help ease the burden on our healthcare system and build smarter, more connected hospitals that will ultimately benefit all of us, every day.
About Scott Heather, Vice President of Professional Services US, Bits In Glass
As Bits In Glass’ Vice President of Professional Services in the US and Practice Lead for Blue Prism and VANTIQ, Scott is responsible for the overall performance and execution of these lines of business, as well as the strategy for implementation and customer success. He has over 19 years of Information Technology experience with a focus on deploying business process solutions on a variety of enterprise software platforms.
As COVID-19 continues to impact the country, providers across the continuum face new challenges delivering care and ensuring safety for their patients and themselves. During this period, sharing real-time information about patients’ care encounters across provider types and care settings matter more than ever. In particular, hospitals sharing admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) events with COVID-19 patients’ community-based providers is critical to ensure the best treatment course and safer more seamless care transitions for infected and recovering patients.
Real-time ADT-based notifications include information about a patient’s current care encounter, demographic details, information about the provider or institution sending the notification, and, as permissible, clinical information. This data enables providers across the continuum to make informed and coordinated decisions about their patients’ treatment and care transition plans. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recognized the importance of such ADT notifications in supporting patient care and finalized a new Condition of Participation (CoP) as part of the recently published Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule (85 FR 25510). The CoP requires hospitals to share electronic patient event notifications, or e-notifications, with other community providers, such as primary care physicians (PCPs) and post-acute care providers, to facilitate better care coordination and improve patient outcomes.
The necessity and benefit of these e-notifications has come into stark relief as providers and the healthcare system more broadly fight COVID-19. ADT-based e-notifications are an accessible and easy way to help enable better safety for COVID-19 patients and their providers while also ensuring efficient use and appropriate allocation of scarce resources. For example, ADT-based e-notifications can:
Enhance Safety for PatientsProtecting patient safety and providing appropriate treatment is especially urgent during a crisis like COVID-19 when resources are limited and staff is stretched. E-notifications allow hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients to more rapidly get in touch with a patient’s other providers and obtain important medical histories to help guide treatment and clinical decision-making. Traditional exchange of data facilitated by phone calls, faxes, or labor-intensive data searches can introduce treatment delays, unnecessary or harmful interventions, and frustrations for providers. The faster information can be exchanged and a patient’s history is known by the hospital care team, the easier it is to effectively and safely treat the patient with the most appropriate interventions.
Enhance Safety for Providers: Hospital e-notifications are especially important for post-acute and other community-based providers that will continue treatment for COVID-19 patients discharged from the hospital. Because e-notifications provide context about the patient’s most recent encounter, including diagnoses where permissible, they help guide the continuation of care. Receiving e-notifications from hospitals allows such providers to appropriately prepare staff and put safety measures in place prior to treating COVID-19 patients. In particular, Skilled Nursing Facilities need time to properly and safely intake infected patients while Home Health Agencies need to prepare and equip their nurses for visits to homes of infected patients.
Open Hospital Beds for the Sickest Patients: Through real-time e-notifications, hospitals are able to more easily and quickly communicate and share information with COVID-19 patients’ other community-based providers who will care for recovering patients after they are discharged from the hospital. This exchange of information allows hospital care teams to more seamlessly and quickly transition recovering COVID-19 patients to the next level of care, which opens scarce hospital beds for the sickest patients.
Improve Care for COVID-19 Patients:Real-time e-notifications from hospitals allow PCPs and care coordinators to know when their patients have inpatient or ED events. In particular, discharge notifications can trigger critical follow-up services, including telehealth-based visits, to ensure COVID-19 patients recover safely and fully after they leave the hospital. Engaging COVID-19 patients after a hospitalization can help prevent readmissions and keep patients healthy in their homes. At the same time, PCPs are able to support the financial viability of their practices by being able to provide and bill for Transitional Care Management Services and ensure patient engagement in ongoing preventive and other clinical care.
Bolster Public Health Response:Aggregated and de-identified ADT-based notifications offer wide-ranging and powerful real-time data for local, state, and federal public health officials to detect emerging COVID-19 hotspots and intense ED, hospital, ICU strain. Real-time data about the hospital and ED utilization can help public health officials direct and allocate scarce resources to the highest need areas quickly.
These are just some examples of how ADT-based e-notifications can play an important part in helping healthcare organizations effectively, efficiently, and safely deliver care for their patients during the ongoing pandemic – and beyond.
About Jay Desai, CEO & Co-Founder, PatientPing
Jay started PatientPing in 2013 with one goal in mind: to connect providers everywhere to seamlessly coordinate patient care. Prior to founding PatientPing, Jay worked at the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) where he helped develop ACOs, bundled payments, and other payment initiatives. Jay’s passion lies at the intersection of technology, policy, and community building. He has an MBA in healthcare management from Wharton and a BA from the University of Michigan.
– Innovaccer has recently partnered with Central Maine
Healthcare (CMH), an integrated healthcare delivery system that serves over
400,000 people in the central, western, and mid-coast regions of the state, to
connect providers with their patients through data-driven telehealth, powered
by its FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform.
– The care delivery system will conduct data-enabled
virtual visits to assist its providers with efficient, remote care amid the
COVID-19 crisis and beyond.
Innovaccer, Inc., a
San Francisco, CA-based healthcare technology company, has partnered with Central Maine Healthcare (CMH), an integrated
healthcare delivery system that serves over 400,000 people in the central,
western, and mid-coast regions of the state, to connect providers with their
patients through data-driven telehealth,
powered by its FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform. The collaboration will
empower physicians at CMH with the ability to care for their patients with
real-time virtual visits and remote consultation experiences during the
pandemic.
When many patients are reluctant to visit the clinic to
avoid potential exposure to the coronavirus, healthcare organizations are
implementing virtual exam rooms and data-enabled telehealth visits for
chronically-ill patients in their care.
With Innovaccer’s Virtual Care solution built on top of its
FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform and its data-driven telehealth
capabilities, the providers at CMH can conduct online patient consultations as
seamlessly as traditional onsite visits. The care teams at CMH can streamline
their workflows with the solution’s automated bulk messaging and outreach
capabilities. The platform will also assist providers in expediting the
follow-up process through telehealth consultations with secure messaging and
improve patient engagement with the health system.
In addition to scheduling HIPAA-compliant HD video visits,
the solution’s virtual patient examination room can empower providers at CMH to
send and receive pre-visit assessments, texts, and email through secure
messaging.
Providers at CMH will be using the Virtual Care solution to
provide educational material for their patients, conduct smart outreach and
enable pre-visit planning with accurate patient self-assessments. With the
solution, providers at CMH can manage post-call logs to streamline their care
management approach.
Given the situation we are all in, healthcare needed a new approach to tackle the pandemic. Central Maine Healthcare adopted a modern approach to care delivery where our primary focus was to offer our patients a virtual care option to make it easier for them to seek care, wherever they may be. Innovaccer’s FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform expertise will be helpful for us in strengthening our virtual care and it will be a good addition to our strategy going forward,” says Steven Martel, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, CMH
Ernie Ianace, EVP Sales and Marketing at VitalTech
“The numbers don’t lie,” is a famous old adage and quite appropriate with regard to the rapid rise and deployment of telehealth solutions in the medical community. It may have taken a global pandemic for society to recognize and investigate the rewards of its adoption, but statistics reveal that telehealth’s moment has indeed come. And it certainly seems like it’s here to stay.
How did we come so far, so fast? By undertaking forward-thinking policies and bold action, the health care industry nimbly and quickly adopted this technology to mitigate the immediate threat of COVID-19’s lethal contagiousness.
As it pertains to effectiveness, the federal government’s overwhelming response to shore up commerce, industry, and unforeseen unemployment levels has been met with mixed reviews. But the designated programs specific to the healthcare industry have been an undeniable success. Thanks to a sudden and massive infusion of funding and support for telehealth medicine, initiated by federal and state governments, the health care industry is witnessing a historic sea-change in its processes, procedures, and practices. The widespread, rapid adoption of telehealth solutions is the prime example.
Beyond the impact of funding, now in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the utilization of telehealth also benefited from additional measures which simultaneously boosted its appeal for trial and adoption. For the first time, health care providers were permitted to use telehealth to treat Medicare patients, opening the door for insurance companies and state governments to follow suit.
Subsequently, many of the nation’s largest private insurance providers then took it a step further—waiving copays for patient consultations via telehealth. For both the insured and uninsured, the elimination of out-of-pocket costs is likely to increase consumer trial and adoption of virtual physician visits. The bold and swift decisions to relax certain restrictions and requirements within the traditional health care model has created fertile ground for telehealth’s trial and adoption.
The use of telehealth as a practical solution has been available for some time, but its adoption by consumers faced difficulty, as many perceived virtual visits would not measure up to the value of in-person doctor appointments. But recent research and surveys on telehealth’s usage reveal this barrier may be crumbling. In April, Sage Growth Partner (SGP) and Black Book Market Research collaborated on a survey revealing that, prior to COVID-19, only a quarter of respondents had used telehealth. But amidst the backdrop of our current pandemic, nearly 60% of those surveyed say they are now likely to consider telehealth in addressing their personal health care needs. Additionally, other studies have concluded that after an initial trial of telehealth, a majority of consumers expressed high levels of satisfaction with their experience—and a strong likelihood of follow-up use.
Yet only viewing the benefits of telehealth through the narrow lens of a physician-patient consultation is to overlook its full value proposition across the health care industry as a whole. What are some other examples of how telehealth is changing the health care landscape for the better? Here are a few ways in which its adoption and use are improving our models of caregiving:
Protecting our Collective Health
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, an obvious benefit is the option to seek care remotely while maintaining isolation through the practice of social distancing. There are no crowded waiting rooms or hospital hallways to deal with, thereby lessening the risk of exposure and infection to patients and caregivers alike.
Meeting the Caregiver Demand
In some areas of the U.S., a steep demand for health advisors has spiked, due to postponement of elective surgeries and the need for ongoing treatment of patients with chronic health care conditions. Pack Health, Birmingham, Al. chronic care coaching provider utilizes certified Health Advisors to help patients get access to care options while helping them develop self-management skills to gradually improve their conditions. With a surge of over 50,000 new patients, the company rapidly transformed its onboard training program to a telehealth platform to meet the demand for new hires. In doing so, Pack Health was able to scale up staffing much faster and cheaper than ever before.
Impact on Rural Health Care
According to the consultants at Guidehouse, one in four rural hospitals are deemed high-risk for closing—and this was reported before the pandemic. Through the use of telehealth platforms, a large portion of the rural United States can now receive access to clinical care services and at-home monitoring services. In effect, telehealth can become a new tool to help alleviate rural America’s serious deficit of accessing critical care.
Impact on Mental Health Care
The rise in telehealth adoption is also having a positive effect for patients who require access to mental health services. Even before the pandemic, many people with various mental health needs chose not to seek treatment due to perceived social stigmas. Using telehealth as a solution, they can now obtain access to providers, care, therapy, and treatment in the privacy of their homes. Likewise, those patients already under the care of mental health professionals are able to keep routine appointments, in spite of COVID-19’s disruption.
As for telehealth’s future, it is certain to benefit in multiple ways from its current trial by fire. Perhaps there is no better proving ground for assessing its total value proposition than during a global health crisis that shows no sign of relenting. Being at the right place at the right time can be an invaluable proving ground and the future of the telehealth industry appears to be positioned for staggering growth. In April, Global Market Insights, market research, and consulting company released a report predicting the telemedicine market will reach $175.5B by the year 2026.
Furthermore, healthcare providers need to think of telehealth as only one component of comprehensive care. Patients need to have several different touchpoints throughout the healthcare continuum to ensure the best quality of care. Examples of these touchpoints include advanced biometric wearables, real-time data collection, and advanced analytics to provide actionable data for patients and care teams.
As technology continues to drive the rapid pace of improvements in digitalization, platforms, high-speed broadband access, and mobile devices, the widespread adoption of telehealth and telemedicine solutions will become even more commonplace. As a result, the ever-increasing capacity to improve our traditional health care delivery models may indeed be forever changed for the better.
About Ernie Ianace
Ernie Ianace is the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at VitalTech® Affiliates, LLC. Based in Plano, TX, VitalTech is a rapidly growing provider of fully integrated digital health solutions and smart biomedical wearables that provide real-time monitoring for patient wellness and safety. The company’s connected care platform, VitalCare®, enables health systems, skilled nursing facilities, home health providers, physicians, and senior living facilities to streamline workflows while improving health outcomes, increasing patient safety, and lowering the cost of care.
– Microsoft released the public preview of Azure IoT
Connector for FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), the latest
update to the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.
– The Azure IoT Connector for FHIR makes it easy for
health developers to set up a pipeline to manage protected health information
(PHI) from IoT devices and enable care teams to view patient data in context
with clinical records in FHIR.
This week, Microsoft released the preview of Azure
IoT Connector for FHIR—a fully managed feature of the Azure API for FHIR.
The connector empowers health teams with the technology for a scalable
end-to-end pipeline to ingest, transform, and manage Protected Health
Information (PHI) data from devices using the security of FHIR APIs.
Telehealth
and remote monitoring. It’s long been talked about in the delivery of
healthcare, and while some areas of health have created targeted use cases in
the last few years, the availability of scalable telehealth platforms that can
span multiple devices and schemas has been a barrier. Yet in a matter of
months, COVID-19 has accelerated the discussion. There is an urgent need for
care teams to find secure and scalable ways to deliver remote monitoring
platforms and to extend their services to patients in the home environment.
Unlike other services that can use generic video services
and data transfer in virtual settings, telehealth visits and remote monitoring
in healthcare require data pipelines that can securely manage Protected Health
Information (PHI). To be truly effective, they must also be designed for
interoperability with existing health software like electronic medical record
platforms. When it comes to remote monitoring scenarios, privacy, security, and
trusted data exchanges are must-haves. Microsoft is actively investing in
FHIR-based health technology like the Azure IoT Connector for FHIR to ensure
health customers have an ecosystem they trust.
Azure IoT Connector for FHIR Key Features
With the Azure IoT Connector for FHIR available as a feature
on Microsoft’s cloud-based FHIR service, it’s now quick and easy for health
developers to set up an ingestion pipeline, designed for security to manage PHI
from IoT devices. The Azure IoT Connector for FHIR focuses on biometric data at
the ingestion layer, which means it can connect at the device-to-cloud or cloud-to-cloud
workstreams. Health data can be sent to Event Hub, Azure IoT Hub, or Azure IoT
Central, and is converted to FHIR resources, which enables care teams to view
patient data captured from IoT devices in context with clinical records in
FHIR.
Key features of the Azure IoT Connector for FHIR include:
– Conversion of biometric data (such as blood glucose, heart
rate, or pulse ox) from connected devices into FHIR resources.
– Scalability and real-time data processing.
– Seamless integration with Azure IoT solutions and Azure
Stream Analytics.
– Role-based Access Control (RBAC) allows for managing
access to device data at scale in Azure API for FHIR.
– Audit log tracking for data flow.
– Helps with compliance in the cloud: ISO 27001:2013 certified supports HIPAA and GDPR, and built on the HITRUST certified Azure platform.
Microsoft customers are already ushering in the next generation of healthcare
Some of the healthcare organizations who are embracing the technology include:
– Humana will accelerate remote monitoring programs for
patients living with chronic conditions at its senior-focused primary care
subsidiary, Conviva Care Centers.
– Sensoria is enabling secure data exchange from its Motus
Smart remote patient monitoring device, allowing clinicians to see real-time
data and proactively reach out to patients to manage care.
– Centene is managing personal biometric data and will
explore near-real-time monitoring and alerting as part of its overall priority
on improving the health of its members.
– Emtiro Health, an
innovative population health company in North Carolina has selected Innovaccer
to deliver data-powered solutions to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness
of care delivery.
– Powered by Innovaccer’s FHIR-enabled Data Activation
Platform, Emtiro Health will create unified patient records that drive
comprehensive, whole-person care management, no matter where they are on the
care continuum. The FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform will also deliver
highly actionable data, automated care management workflows, and smart patient
engagement.
Emitro Health, a
Winston Salem, NC-based population
health company, today announced a partnership with Innovaccer, a San Francisco, CA-based
healthcare technology to enable the effective delivery of services to the
patients and providers supported by Emtiro Health.
Emitro Health Background
Emtiro Health supports providers, systems, and payers with unparalleled expertise and knowledge augmented by data and analytics. This platform enhances the patient experience and improves outcomes while delivering effective healthcare at a lower cost. Emtiro Health addresses the systemic barriers to total wellbeing and helps patients chart a course to brighter futures. The organization’s experienced team brings diverse backgrounds and skillsets to complement a whole-practice approach from practice optimization and transformation, data analytics, and quality reporting to the integration of services, such as clinical pharmacy and behavioral health.
Leveraging FHIR-enabled
Data Activation Platform
Powered by Innovaccer’s FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform, Emtiro Health will create unified patient records that drive comprehensive, whole-person care management, no matter where they are on the care continuum. The FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform will also deliver highly actionable data, automated care management workflows, and smart patient engagement. Emtiro Health’s provider partners will be equipped with point-of-care insights that surface relevant information for patient health in real-time. The entire suite of solutions will enable Emtiro Health to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both providers and care, management teams, allowing them to care as one for patients.
Unified Health Record
Innovaccer’s
FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform helps healthcare organizations obtain a
complete picture through their unified patient record. The data is then
activated for smart analytics and decision support — so, care teams have the
crucial information they need to provide better care and to care as one.
“Emtiro Health selected Innovaccer to provide customized business intelligence and analytics solutions to our partners to revolutionize how the right level of care is delivered to the right patient at the right time. The Innovaccer data platform coupled with Emtiro Health’s expertise in delivering a total population health model of care management is a game-changer for providers and patients alike,” said Kelly Garrison, President and CEO of Emtiro Health. “In practice, this collaboration will mean more informed care, healthier individuals and healthier communities in North Carolina.”
Jeff Fountaine, Director, Healthcare Vertical Market, Elo
A clinician’s mission is to deliver the best possible care to his or her patients. However, when technology gets in the way of the workflow, clinicians are obligated to spend valuable time making sure data inputs are accurate and complete across disparate systems. Nowhere is this more prevalent than with electronic medical records (EMRs).
Dr. Peter Greene, MD, CMIO, with Johns Hopkins, said, “Efficiency is really at the heart of what troubles us most. Clinicians really want the EMR to make their work easier. Current EMRs take up too much of their time and pull them away from face-to-face time with patients and care teams.”
Dr. Greene’s reflections embody the concerns that the design of the EMR system in critical workflows does not put the patient first. To address this, EMR developers are devoting significant effort into making the EMR design work on behalf of the clinician and patient. Many are finding the greatest room for improvement is in implementing touchscreen technology into the workstation on wheels (WoW) or on in-room wall mounts. Such technology allows clinicians to quickly access key sections of the EMR and input important data like physical exam findings and medication type and dosage.
Transform Healthcare With Touch Technology
EMR developers are recognizing that touchscreens significantly enhance the clinician’s experience and patient interaction. From the chief medical officer to the clinicians and medical staff, everyone is familiar with touchscreen technology in their daily lives via their mobile devices. Bringing this technology to clinicians’ and nurses’ workflows frees them from needing to use a keyboard and mouse in favor of a more intuitive and dynamic display. This allows them to more quickly and easily access medical records, view medical images, prescribe medication and document care, and improve their efficiency by up to 20%.
It’s faster and easier to clean touchscreen displays too, especially when comparing them to a traditional keyboard and mouse. With a solid piece of glass and a seamless surface, the touchscreen is easily cleaned with wipes commonly available is patient settings. Whether it’s COVID-19, common influenza, or another infectious disease, implementing a streamlined touchscreen solution can help protect patients.
Build a Unified Architecture for Clinicians
Many modern touchscreen-based workflows are built on a mobile architecture like Android. As healthcare organizations invest in streamlined solutions for clinicians, there’s often a gap that occurs when the mobile operating system doesn’t link seamlessly with the desktop architecture. Without a unified platform connecting every touchpoint, organizations lose precious time continually replacing outdated platforms and hardware. Making the decision to invest in a unified architecture will streamline the entire ecosystem, shorten future deployment time, and enable flexibility across the organization.
The first step for CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, and health systems to achieve this is to create a proof of concept that brings together key leaders within the clinical staff to showcase inclusion of touch technology at the desktop level, coupled with mobile devices for a variety of clinical applications. Next, they can deploy a trial built on a flexible, scalable architecture to help the organization better envision the investment they are making before committing more money.
In this trial, they can demonstrate how the EMR improves key workflows as clinicians more easily enter data and health information while taking care of their patients. From this demonstration, CIOs and health systems can receive feedback from clinicians to share with the EMR engineering team to help them better understand how they can improve the design of their UI/UX to get the most out of the unified desktop and mobile experience.
From trial and iteration to solution deployment, the objective remains the same – to create an infrastructure that scales to the demands of the environment while leaving the user satisfied. The outcome of patient care is always first and foremost in the minds of clinicians, so the technology should enable them to focus on care and deliver on that ultimate goal.
About Jeff Fountaine
As director of the healthcare vertical market for Elo, Jeff Fountaine develops and delivers solutions that enhance provider experiences and patient engagement in the healthcare and medical market. With 15 years of experience, he addresses critical workflow challenges for clinicians while ensuring positive patient outcomes through the use of technology.
– Philips integrates the BioIntelliSense FDA-cleared
BioSticker™ sensor as part of its remote patient monitoring solutions for
patients outside the hospital.
– Multi-parameter sensors aid monitoring across multiple chronic conditions with medical-grade vital signs for physicians to remotely track core symptoms, including COVID-19.
– Healthcare Highways is the first to leverage the BioSticker sensor as a part of Philips’ RPM program in the U.S.
Philips, today announced it has formed a strategic collaboration with BioIntelliSense, a continuous health monitoring, and clinical intelligence company, to integrate its BioSticker™ medical device into Philips’ remote patient monitoring (RPM) offering to help monitor at-risk patients from the hospital into the home. With the addition of multi-parameter sensors, Philips’ solutions can enhance how clinicians monitor patient populations living with chronic conditions – including diabetes, cancer, congestive heart failure and more – in their homes with passive monitoring of key vital signs, physiological biometrics, and symptomatic events via a discreet wearable patch for monitoring up to 30 days.
COVID-19 Pandemic Underscores Need for Remote Patient Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring and telehealth-enabled clinical programs offer care teams a sustainable and scalable way to manage patient populations with chronic or complex conditions at home and plays a key role in supporting care for COVID-19 patients who do not require hospitalization. By regularly transmitting patient data that can provide critical insights into a patient’s condition, the collaboration will empower care teams in the U.S. with a more holistic patient view and the ability to intervene earlier before adverse events occur. With single-use sensors and patient-owned technology supporting remote monitoring, care teams can also help reduce the need for clinicians and patients to interact in person.
“With more patients interacting with their doctors from home and more hospitals developing strategies to virtually engage with their patients, remote patient monitoring is now, more than ever, an essential tool,” said Roy Jakobs, Chief Business Leader Connected Care, member of the Executive Committee at Royal Philips. “Building on Philips’ global leadership in patient monitoring, which includes an extensive suite of advanced monitoring solutions, platforms, and sensors, this is the latest example of our capability to allow more seamless, cloud-based data collection across multiple settings from the home to the hospital and back into the home. Patient data, coupled with our clinically differentiated and leading AI-powered technology, quantifies the data into relevant actionable insights to help detect deterioration trends and support care interventions – all while outside the walls of the hospital.”
Wireless, Secure Data Transfer of Key Vital Signs
The
BioSticker is a single-use, FDA-cleared 510k class II wearable medical device
to enable at-home continuous passive monitoring with minute level data across a
broad set of vital signs, physiological biometrics and symptomatic events (skin
temperature, resting heart rate, resting respiratory rate, body position,
activity levels, cough frequency) on a single device for thirty-days. Symptoms,
including those directly associated with COVID-19 such as temperature and
respiratory rate, can be remotely monitored in confirmed cases of Coronavirus
and also for those patients not sick enough to be hospitalized, or those
suspected of having COVID-19.
In
addition to COVID-19, the BioSticker device will help transform the way
clinicians monitor and manage patients living with chronic conditions from the
home.
“Multi-parameter
sensors are the natural next phase for remote monitoring, especially at a time
when more patients are engaging with their physicians from home,” said James
Mault, MD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BioIntelliSense. “Clinicians
need medical grade monitoring and algorithmic clinical insights for COVID-19
exposure, symptoms and management. Accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis, the
practice of medicine has been irreversibly enlightened as to the safety and
efficacy of virtual care. Philips is a demonstrated leader in remote patient
monitoring, and we look forward to BioIntelliSense’s technology playing
an integral role in simplifying and enhancing outcomes for patients and their
doctors.”
Healthcare Highways first to leverage BioSticker as a part of
Philips’ RPM solutions
Healthcare Highways, a provider of health plans, high-performance provider networks, pharmacy benefit management, population health management, and benefit plan administration, is the first to leverage the BioSticker sensor as a part of Philips’ RPM program in the U.S. Out of the seven programs that will be deployed with Healthcare Highways, one will focus specifically on monitoring patients with COVID-19. The remaining six will focus on conditions across the acuity spectrum, including patients with congestive heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, total joint replacement, cancer and asthma. The program will help Healthcare Highways improve insights to patient health status across its provider network.
“Healthcare Highways was built on the idea of delivering measurable value and access to quality care to our members. We work in partnership with our providers to innovate on the care model, and look at Remote Patient Monitoring as the next frontier of how providers will connect with patients,” said Creagh Milford, DO, MPH, Chief Medical Officer of Healthcare Highways and Chief Executive Officer of HighCare Health. “COVID-19 has underscored the need for proactive care management. Resources are strained and by integrating an RPM program with biosensor technology, we’ll be able to drive further value for our unique member base, providers and employers to establish a new way of care delivery.”
– Doctor On Demand raises $75M in Series D
funding led by General Atlantic to expand comprehensive virtual care.
– Doctor On Demand is seeing record usage
this year – up 139% – for COVID-19 screenings, routine health issues, chronic
conditions and behavioral health.
San Francisco, CA-based Doctor On Demand, today announced it
has raised $75 million in Series D funding led by General Atlantic, a leading
global growth equity firm, with participation from existing investors. The
funds will be used to accelerate Doctor On Demand’s investments in growth and
further expand access to high-quality, comprehensive virtual care for patients
nationwide.
Founded in 2012, Doctor On Demand offers immediate,
video-based access to top physicians and psychologists for just $40 per visit,
with no subscription fees for partners via the iPhone, iPad,Android and
desktop. With over 98 million covered lives and a 4.9/5 patient
satisfaction rating, Doctor On Demand is the preferred
virtual care provider of consumers, health plans and employers. The company’s
unmatched technology platform and clinical model of fully employed providers
gives patients a continuum of care and the ability to build trusted, personal
relationships with their providers.
Recent Traction/Milestones
Following robust growth in 2019, Doctor On Demand
experienced accelerated momentum in the first half of 2020, with the COVID-19
pandemic driving increased demand for the company’s integrated medical and
behavioral health services. The company more than doubled its covered lives in
the past six months, propelling Doctor On Demand to its 3 millionth virtual visit.
In response to the public health emergency, the company mobilized quickly to
roll out its critical virtual medical services to 33 million Medicare Part B
beneficiaries across all 50 states, just weeks after the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded coverage to allow for the reimbursement of
telemedicine visits for this high-risk patient population.
While COVID-19 has driven a sharp increase in utilization of
Doctor On Demand’s urgent care and behavioral health services, more than half
of the company’s 2020 future growth is focused on the continued expansion of
its Virtual Primary Care offering. This service enables health plans and
employers to deliver cost-efficient, comprehensive virtual care inclusive of
integrated behavioral health, 24/7 everyday & urgent care, and chronic care
management to their populations while reducing costs.
“In April 2019, Humana and Doctor On Demand launched On
Hand™, a first-of-its-kind health plan that centered on comprehensive virtual
primary care,” said Chris Hunter, Segment President, Group and Military
Business at Humana. “This new plan design represented a paradigm shift in
healthcare, and demonstrated that our members can and will build long-term
relationships with primary care providers and care teams in a virtual-first
care setting.”
“Even before the pandemic, we recognized the importance of
providing integrated, virtual medical and emotional health care for our
associates,” said Adam Stavisky, SVP, US Benefits at Walmart. “Our early
decision to partner with Doctor On Demand helped us respond quickly as the
crisis hit, allowing us to immediately meet the care needs of our associates
and their families where and when they need it.”
