Client Background
The client is Texas-based and provides services to patients with diabetes. The client focuses on achieving expected patient health outcomes by delivering continuous, value-based, effective patient care. The client has a small-scale practice and fewer medical experts.
The client used Epic EHR to provide services to patients. Using the EHR software, the client makes outcalls to patients, obtains patient readings, and provides the care plan report.
Business challenges
While managing the patient, the client has faced some challenges that creted difficulties for the client to deliver effective quality care to the patients.Some of the challenges are:
1. Difficulties in continuous monitoring of patient’s blood glucose
The client faced challenges monitoring the patient’s blood glucose level in real-time. Due to this, the client was unaware of glucose level changes in the patient’s body, which caused health complications for patients and unexpected health outcomes.
2. Medication adherence and management
The client’s software lacked the functionality of sending medication reminders, resulting in patients' lack of medication adherence. This hampered the expected health outcomes for patients.
3. Personalized care planning for Diabetes
The provider should assign and customize the care plan according to the patient's health and chronic conditions. The client was unable to do these activities due to software limitations that reduced the quality of care for the patients.
4. Inefficient task management and clinical review process
Handling a huge number of patients with a smaller number of medical staff took a lot of work for care providers. As the care provider is not able to assign tasks efficiently to other care team members. That resulted in delays in completing clinical activities over patient profiles, ultimately hampering the quality of care.
5. Lack of preventive care
The client was unaware of sudden abnormal changes in the patient’s health due to the limitation of software that resulted in the quality of preventive healthcare delivery.
Solution
The client has determined that enrolling them in a CMS-sponsored program and providing services that utilize remote patient monitoring to track patient vitals continuously is necessary to manage more patients.
To overcome this issue, the client has approached Medarch Inc. for eCareMD software, which consists of advanced technologies to ensure continuous monitoring and collection of patient health data.
To understand and fulfill client expectations, our team of business analysts and subject matter experts had multiple virtual interactions and demonstrations with the client. After understanding all the requirements, we implemented the eCareMD software in the client’s practice. After the implementation of the software, the client experienced significant revenue growth and improved health outcomes.
Solution Highlights
Our eCareMD software consists of cutting-edge technologies and integrates with remote monitoring tools that helps care providers manage more patients remotely. Some of the features are:
1. Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) with a glucometer
Remote patient monitoring involves the use of smart devices for continuous collection and transmission of patient health vitals. The eCareMD software integrates with the smart glucometer, which continuously measures the patient's blood sugar level. The device is connected to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and the collected readings are directly transmitted to the care provider's eCareMD software. This enables care providers to monitor real-time sugar levels.
2. Medication reminders
To obtain better health outcomes, it is important to take medicines as prescribed in the care plan provided by care providers. The eCareMD software gives automated reminders to patients to take medicine at regular intervals, prescription refills, etc.
3. Assigning and customizing condition-specific care plans
Based on the patient’s chronic condition(Diabetes), the eCareMD software allows care providers to assign and customize the care plan for diabetes as per the patient’s health condition. The care plan includes goals, barriers, symptoms, medications, interventions, numbers to track, and expected outcomes. This care plan gives guidelines to the patient about the treatment to be followed.
4. Scheduled clinical reviews
The eCareMD software allows care providers to schedule tasks like daily, weekly, and monthly chart reviews, physician reviews, etc. For care team members. These tasks can be completed by the care team members by taking necessary action through email, calls, text messages, etc. These periodic reviews of patient clinical health data reduce health complications and emergency visits.
5. Alerts and Notifications
The glucometer continuously tracks the blood sugar level of the patient and transmits the vitals to the care provider’s software. If the patient's sugar level goes beyond the threshold limit, then the system generates alerts as per the severity and can be notified to care team members. Based on the alerts, the care provider intervenes and takes necessary actions over the patient's profile. This leads to avoiding health complications and ensures the stable health of the patient.
Value Delivered
1. Early detection risk and prevention uncertainty
The glucometer continuously collects and transmits patient health vitals to the care provider’s eCareMD software and generates alerts if vitals exceed threshold levels. This early detection helps care providers to intervene at the right time and resolve the complications.
2. Improved medication adherence and health outcomes
The eCareMD’s reminder feature helped care providers configure reminders at regular intervals for patients that notify patients to take medicine on time. This results in improved medication adherence by patients, thereby achieved expected health outcomes.
3. Patient-centered care
eCareMD software helps care providers assign assessments to patients, evaluate their health status, and customize care plans according to requirements. This contributes to effective care delivery, keeping the patient at the center.
4. Reduction in hospital readmissions and emergency visits
Efficient scheduling and completion of clinical tasks, such as daily, weekly, and monthly clinical reviews, along with physician assessments by care providers, facilitated the customization of care plans as required. This proactive approach resulted in the prevention of further health complications for patients.
5. Enhanced Preventive healthcare delivery
Features such as alerts and notifications assisted care providers in making timely interventions when patient health vitals exceeded threshold levels. Consequently, the quality of preventive care has been enhanced, leading to improved patient health outcomes.