Honeywell HomMed’s new White Paper “The Role of Telehealth in an Integrated Health Delivery System” describes how telehealth can provide the bridge between patients and healthcare providers.
The white paper points out that telehealth solutions are the perfect companion to integrated healthcare delivery networks and ACOs because they have the same overarching goal to make healthcare delivery more efficient, reduce readmissions, while simultaneously increasing quality of patient care.
The White Paper discusses how an integrated health delivery system like Lee Memorial Health System (LMHS) located in Florida operates as an integrated health delivery system. LMHS is a public health care system that includes four acute care hospital locations as well as other healthcare facilities and services including a home health agency, nursing home, outpatient treatment and diagnostic centers, physician offices, a children’s hospital, and a rehabilitation hospital.
The LMHS telehealth system uses Honeywell’s LifeStream Solutions, which is a combination of remote patient monitoring devices and back-end support software. Analytical tools are offered so that LMHS healthcare staff can track patient outcomes, patient case load, as well as standard reports to measure operational and clinical staff efficiency.
The telehealth program launched in 2010, began with 50 remote patient monitors, and has grown to more than 250 with more than 6,000 patients monitored to date. The program collects data and reports the metrics within the system where the metrics are designed to measure not only initial results but to also provide deeper insight into potential areas of improvement.
LMHS also strives to improve overall communication across the care continuum. For example, the Health System has created a way to interact with physicians based on the level of patient urgency using protocols to address common patient symptoms presented in remote monitoring data.
In the 30 months since the telehealth program started, 781 readmissions have been avoided resulting in an estimated savings of more than $4 million. This figure is based on average hospital cost of $5,600 per hospital admission or readmission and is much lower than the national average of $9,600 according to CMS.
To view the White Paper go to www.hommed.com/lifestream-resources.