Hospitals need to find innovative solutions to improve patient care and avoid financial penalties related to the chronically ill patient population. With remote patient monitoring, clinicians are able to track patients at home and intervene before the patient requires readmission to the hospital.
However, hospitals often lack the necessary resources to navigate the complexities of designing and implementing such a program since new equipment and services are needed and at the same time, requires EHR integration and management.
The ECRI Institute www.ecri.org a nonprofit organization walks hospitals through the full remote monitoring www.ecri.org/remotepatient journey from concept to implementation. ECRI consultants work with hospital leaders across the care continuum to perform an evidence-based needs assessment, develop a plan for initiation and growth, and rigorously evaluate vendor technologies and solutions.
The service guides the hospital through the process by determining patient selection criteria and training requirements, designing clinical monitoring protocols, establishing criteria for measuring success, and also address the program’s scalability.
One of the key elements of the service is to do the independent unbiased vendor evaluation. Following a cost and capabilities analysis, ECRI walks the hospital through a short-listing process to select the most suitable technology partner.
“Hospitals need a trusted partner to help them explore what is essentially uncharted territory for reducing patient readmissions. Hospitals find it helpful to work with ECRI to deal with the challenges of developing and implementing a successful remote patient monitoring program,” says Thomas E. Skorup, Vice President Applied Solutions Group, ECRI Institute.