The UHealth Televigilance Program was launched at the University of Miami Health System’s Miller School of Medicine https://physician-news.umiamihealth.org. The program enables providers to remotely monitor and care for COVID-19 patients who might otherwise need to continue care in inpatient settings.
The program involves arming discharged patients with TytoCare home health devices which the patient and their caregivers can use to electronically transmit timely health status information and if there is a problem can quickly address the problem or triage patients who need higher levels of care.
According to Sabrina Taldone, MD, Medical Director of the UHealth Televigilance program and Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program at the Miller School of Medicine, “Merging the benefits of telemedicine with the clinical accuracy obtained by recording patients’ vital signs and doing an extensive physical exam, makes it possible to closely monitor specific patients immediately after they are discharged from the hospital or ER.
The TytoCare device is integrated with Epic, UHealth’s EMR system to enable UHealth to apply computer logic to patients’ clinical data which also help to alert providers when a value is out of the normal range.
According to David W. Reis, PhD, Chief Information Officer at University of Miami Health System, “So far, these devices have been given to COVID-19 patients at higher risk of complications such as patients with co-morbidities or those discharged on home oxygen.”