Supporting Providers
As home health care is increasingly recognized as the center of health care in America, and not an ancillary service, home health care providers must move forward more quickly to adopt technologies that will enable them to fulfill this central role effectively and efficiently. When the National Governors Association in 2005 named long-term care as the number one problem facing our country, they also pointed to home and community based care as the viable solution.
It is evident that as the older population swells and the 77 million baby boomer generation retires, our current healthcare system will be overwhelmed. How can we transform our health care system so that it can provide quality care for that number of people, yet at an affordable cost? The answer is through the use of technology, specifically home care technology: Point of Care, Office Automation, Telehealth, and Telephony. These types of technology greatly increase the capacity to provide quality care for patients in their home, at a lesser cost than institutional care.
The media, politicians, consumers, and providers have brought an enormous amount of attention of late to the fact that the healthcare industry in general has been slow to develop and adopt new technology, unlike so many other industries. Home health care providers have shared in this reluctance to embrace and implement technology.
The principal barriers to technology adoption for home health providers are lack of education and awareness of new technology and its benefits and access to capital/lack of reimbursement for technology investment. One of the reasons that the Home Care Technology Association of America was created is to help providers overcome these barriers.
The fact of the matter is, if home health care providers do not face these barriers and move forward with technology adoption, other providers or industries will fill the gap. As consumers, especially the tech-savvy baby boomers, learn about these technologies, they will begin to demand them more and more. Providers must invest in home care technologies or be left behind because these technologies are rapidly becoming part of mainstream health care. It is important to understand that although there is a cost to adopting technology, the cost of not adopting, or even adopting late, are greater. Aside from the greater issues of solving the long-term care issue, these technologies will soon be essential for every provider to remain competitive and viable.
It is often helpful to understand how colleagues and peer organizations have faced these barriers; overcome them; and realized the benefits. In this section of the website, we will share those types of success stories. Part of the education and awareness phase is learning how others have tried and succeeded. Check back periodically for updates and additional postings. If you would like to share a story of your own, please email them to hctaa@gcd.org.
Also, learn more about how HCTAA is addressing awareness and education in the Increasing Awareness section; and how it is helping with the cost and investment issues in the Advocacy section.
Using Telehealth for Timely Intervention to Avoid a Lengthy Hospital Stay
from Idaho Home Health and Hospice, Twin Falls, ID
In 2004, Idaho Home Health and Hospice (IHHH) invested in telemonitoring technology. It didn't take long to discover the real benefit of telemonitoring: improved patient care. IHHH placed the monitor on a person living in a very rural location, some 50 miles north of the Hailey, Idaho branch and in the heart of the Sawtooth Mountains.
The Hailey Branch team employed the monitor in order to assess the patient’s daily vital signs including oxygen saturation and temperatures. The patient was on oxygen and had just returned home from having a total knee operation. It was winter and staff were worried that a snow storm could impede access to the patient for timely assessments. A few days after admittance, a weekend call nurse in the corporate office in Twin Falls discovered an essentially normal temperature of 98.8, yet it was actually elevated compared to a much lower temperature the prior few days.
The nurse notified the President of IHHH, Gary Thietten, who has a cabin near the patient, and asked him to check on the patient. Mr. Thietten, also a registered nurse, heard the patient’s complaints of pain and tenderness and took him to the Sun Valley hospital. There, IV antibiotics were given, the patient was sent home with oral antibiotics, and he successfully recovered. This case and many more that IHHH has experienced demonstrate to them that telehealth is a wise investment for early detection and treatment. And, according to Mr. Thietten, telehealth for our patients should be as easy to access as the stethescope and on the shelf ready for client use by every home health agency in America.
Improving Home Healthcare Delivery with Mobile High Speed Data
from VNA of Northern New Jersey, Morristown, NJ
The VNA of Northern New Jersey (VNANNJ) was approached by Lucent Technologies to discuss use of Mobile High Speed Data (MHSD) in home care. Lucent recommended to VNANNJ a MHSD pilot program using service provided by Verizon Wireless to synchronize point of care data and give remote users e-mail capabilities. A pilot group of 10 users were selected for a 6-8 week trial.
The pilot group found it was easy to use, reliable, client data was more current, users spent less time working at home, and communication was improved because data was synchronized more often and clinicians shared emails about specific clients. Some unexpected results did occur, 67% of the pilot group users said it allowed them to provide better care, 89% reported their job satisfaction had improved, and 100% of the group recommended it should be used by all clinicians. VNANNJ was able to provide all clinicians MHSD at approximately the same cost as they had done using land lines.
Today, they are looking at using the technology for training clinicians, providing wound pictures, use tablet technology to sign forms and e-mail them, and order supplies via Internet/Intranet.
Procuring Grant Monies for Technology Investment
from At Home Care, Oneonta, New York
Laurie Neander, Executive Director of At Home Care in Oneonta, New York has received grant monies for the telehealth demonstration project in the state of New York, and has initiated a telehealth program of service for her home care population. She has analyzed both clinical and operational outcomes for this program, and believes that telehealth monitoring acts as an effective tool in improving both patient and operational outcomes for her home care agency.
Home Care’s Value Equation: One Agency’s ROI on Telehealth
from Island Health Care & Island Hospice, Savannah, GA
"We have many success stories demonstrating the positive outcomes using telehealth. We have transformed our home care model using telehealth in such a way that our staff could never return to "the dark ages!" We are able to pick up incremental changes in patient's conditions which help us to identify and prevent unnecessary hospitalization, decreasing our hospitalization rates by 22% in Georgia!
An example of early intervention using telehealth is when we picked up atrial fibrillation in a knee replacement patient and were able to get him on appropriate medications without another hospitalization. We have many examples like this.” - Lynda Laff, Chief Operating Officer
Also see the ROI calculation provided by this home health agency.
Telemedicine Shown to Improve Outcomes and Save Costs
from Medscape Medical News
Medscape recently described on its website (www.medscape.com) the results of a telemedicine study performed by the Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center in Honolulu. Forty-eight patients with 5 different types of infections (mostly pneumonia) were discharged from the hospital and put on telemonitoring care. The telemonitoring equipment allowed visual, audio, and vital sign data connectivity with the physician. Of the 48 patients, 42 were cured, 3 were not, and 3 were re-admitted to the hospital. When this group was compared to a similar group that was treated exclusively in the hospital, the telemonitoring group experienced a 92% reduction in radiographs and laboratory tests. Also, caring for the patients at home resulted in a calculated savings of 274 hospital days, translating into a savings of $128,000. An even more striking finding from the study was that those who recovered at home under telemonitoring care resumed "activities of daily living” in an average of 8 days versus 21 days for those treated in the hospital.
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