Avera eCARE’s https://www.averaecare.org Senior Care, uses telemedicine to help teams at their skilled nursing facilities as well as at sites offering long-term care and assisted living in the U.S. Today, they are having good results with minimal investment.
Avera eCARE’s Senior Care offers facility staff direct full time access to a geriatric trained team complete with board-certified geriatricians, pharmacists, behavioral health experts, social workers, along with peer-to-peer nursing support staff.
Senior Care support provides 24/7 answers to multiple clinical questions and concerns including those focused on medication use or chart reviews, fall assessments, and physical or behavioral health consults.
Josh Hofmeyer, Avera eCare Senior Care Officer reports, “Avera eCARE Senior Care has found that by using telemedicine, highly engaged facilities with on-call 24/7 telemedicine technology support including access to geriatric trained specialists, has reduced readmission rates by 13% and reduced emergency transfers by over 67%”.
Avera eCARE has documented the fact that the overall use of urgent care telemedicine audio-visual encounters in senior care settings has resulted in 90% of the residents being treated in place.
Administrators and their teams in skilled nursing, long-term care, and assisted living centers, review all the metrics and compare occupancy rates, number of beds in the facility, or study annual ER transfers. Costs have to be considered including how much annual re-hospitalizations may cost their facility or system.