Enhanced Post-Discharge Care with eCareMD’s Remote Patient Monitoring: A Case Study

Client Overview

The client, a mid-sized Virginia hospital, is a key player in the healthcare landscape, particularly in the fields of cardiology, orthopedics, and neurology. With a patient base exceeding 10000, they have established a strong reputation for their unwavering commitment to delivering comprehensive and enhanced quality of care, leading to expected patient health outcomes.

Business challenges

Our client, like many healthcare providers, faced significant challenges in post-discharge care. These included high readmission rates and difficulties in maintaining patient engagement once they returned home. These challenges underscore the critical need for effective solutions in the healthcare industry.

Some of the challenges faced by the client are:

1. High Readmission Rates

Despite delivering the enhanced quality of care during the patient's hospitalization, the client experienced an increased hospital readmission rate, higher than expected within one month of post-discharge.

2. Gaps in Post-Discharge Follow-Up

Post-discharge of patients, a lack of communication between the care providers and patients was a significant challenge for the client. This is mainly due to the need for more communication facilities.

3. Patient treatment adherence challenges

Many patients struggled to follow their prescribed post-discharge care plans, which included medication adherence, lifestyle modifications, and regular monitoring of vital signs. This non-compliance often resulted in complications and the need for readmission.

4. Resource Constraints

Due to the smaller size of medical professionals, it becomes difficult for the providers to deliver the appropriate on-time care to the patients discharged from the hospital. This lack of resources has affected care delivery and affected patient health outcomes.

Solution

Upon understanding the client's requirements and challenges, we demonstrated the eCareMD software. The client was impressed and confirmed that it would effectively address their issues. With their approval, we swiftly implemented the software in their practice, ensuring a seamless transition and minimal disruption to their operations.

1. Real-Time vital monitoring



The eCareMD software is integrated with remote monitoring devices that continuously track the patient’s heart rate, blood oxygen levels, etc. These collected vital health readings are transmitted to the care provider's live dashboard. The care provider can monitor and track the fluctuations and trends in the patient's vital readings.

2. Automated Alerts and Notifications

If the patient's vital reading exceeds threshold levels, the system will generate alerts and notify care providers. The care providers make necessary interventions based on the alerts received to avoid patient health complications and emergency visits. These early interventions have reduced patient readmission rates.

3. Secure communication channels

The eCareMD software consists of secure communication facilities such as voice calls, text sms, and real-time chat that allow care providers and patients to communicate with each other in real time for clinical activities. This increased patient-provider communication post-discharge of patients resulted in improved patient health outcomes.

4. Patient Education and Engagement & Reminders

To increase patient engagment, the eCareMD software enabled care providers to configure reminders for medication sent to the patient hourly, daily, or weekly. Also, the care providers could send educational material to the patients, which helped them understand more about their chronic conditions and the advantages of following the treatment plan, such as medication recommendations, diet, sleep, exercise recommendations, etc.

5. Access to multiple provider group functionality

To address resource constraints challenges, the eCareMD software’s "Ultra Super Provider" feature allows a single provider to manage patients across multiple practices. This functionality significantly enhanced provider efficiency, increasing the practice's revenue.

Value Delivered

The Implementation of eCareMD software has delivered some fundamental values are:

1. Reduction in patient hospital Readmissions

The hospital saw a 50% reduction in 30-day readmission rates among patients enrolled in the RPM program. This decrease was particularly notable among cardiac and orthopedic patients, leading to improved patient outcomes and a sense of satisfaction among the care providers.

2. Enhanced Patient Engagement

Continuous monitoring, virtual consultations, and educational resources significantly improved patient engagement. Patients reported feeling more supported and confident in managing their recovery at home.

3. Increased provider and practice efficiency

The eCareMD software helped care providers manage more patients from different provider groups, increasing provider and practice efficiency.

4. Increased practice revenue

As the hospital readmission rate has been reduced, the expenditures on patients and providers have been reduced. It resulted in saving costs and increased practice revenue.

KEY RESULT