Geisinger Health Plan (GHP), working together with AMC Health, has announced that it has achieved a 44 percent reduction in patients needing to return to the hospital within 30 days of release compared to a control group, as well as improvements in monitoring patients moving from hospital to home, according to a company press release.
Geisinger said in the press release that it has done so using the interactive voice response (IVR) and other innovative telemonitoring technology and solutions provided by AMC Health.
Telemonitoring helps people who are chronically ill follow doctors’ orders more easily because information about what they are doing gets transmitted back to healthcare facilities and can be corrected, or have intervention provided, as needed. It allows a consulting physician to remotely monitor a patient's health status, and chronic conditions can be gathered in real time. Best of all, it allows patients with chronic illnesses to live a more mobile life.
And it’s being used for everything from stroke detection to helping those in rural communities get medical care when it’s not physically available.
The Geisinger Monitoring Program (GMP) IVR protocol helps patients when they leave the hospital by managing them through a telemonitoring solution “that was introduced as an adjunct to existing case management in a managed care population, and designed to reduce hospital readmissions,” according to the press release.
GHP conducted a two-year telehealth program in which it compared 30-day readmission rates for members who did and did not use the GMP home telemonitoring program to evaluate whether AMC Health's telemonitoring solutions, such as IVR, along with case management, reduced 30-day readmission rates, according to the press release.
The program reduced “all-cause 30-day readmission rates by 44 percent,” compared to a control group that had no telemonitoring but was managed the traditional way, the press release states.
"What attracted us to AMC Health was that its technology platform was agnostic to the rapidly growing set of available monitoring devices and peripherals we saw penetrating the marketplace," said Jim Peters, MBA, system vice president at Geisinger Health System and head of Geisinger's strategic industry partnering activities, in the press release.
"AMC Health's solutions amplify our case managers' efforts to continuously innovate and actively engage patients within their homes in ways that aim to enhance quality, reduce total cost of care, and improve access. Our success in leveraging AMC Health's technology to reduce readmissions underscores our belief that providing clinicians with the right data, at the right time, to drive the right interventions is critical to driving the best patient outcomes,” he added.
Geisinger initially integrated AMC Health's telemonitoring solutions into its complex care management for heart failure patients in 2008, where patient compliance was greater than 85 percent, according to the press release.
In surveying its case managers, Geisinger found that 96 percent said “that the telehealth technologies allow them to monitor heart failure patients more efficiently,” and 85 percent believe that the telehealth solution combined with close monitoring from the health care team reduces re-admissions significantly, the press release says.
Geisinger has now expanded its telehealth program to include patients with hypertension and diabetes. Recent studies have put the telehealth market at over $1 billion.
Edited by
Rich Steeves
