By Jerry Fountain, Verizon Wireless regional president
I continually hear from health care providers seeking creative solutions to improve patient compliance with prescribed treatment plans. Many of these patients have just suffered a health crisis and feel overwhelmed with their life-changing health event and the course of care it has precipitated.
They feel abandoned after leaving the care setting and unsure how to comply with the requirements of treatment.
We are all affected by the changing world of health care, but for those who suffer from chronic diseases, which account for 75 percent of all health care spending, hospital readmissions are an especially large problem. Readmissions are expensive for patients, employers and health care systems.
In fact, one in five Medicare patients return to the hospital after 30 days for the same or a related condition, costing the Medicare program $15 billion annually.
Readmissions cause American hospitals to forfeit $300 million each year in federal penalties, and reducing the readmission rate is the only way hospitals can prevent future penalties. Health care systems seek to accomplish that by creating a culture of care that tracks a patient’s progress once discharged from an inpatient care setting.
We need innovative solutions to streamline care, and technology is paving the way.
New technologies coming to market help doctors create year-round care models that emphasize quality of life and real-time health and lifestyle coaching. Patients become more optimistic about their health and are more likely to comply with their doctor’s treatment plan.
Remote patient monitoring is especially important for patients who suffer from chronic diseases – such as diabetes and heart disease – who are likeliest to return to an inpatient setting shortly after being discharged. Readmissions go down when these patients are equipped with a cellular-enabled device that tracks and sends biometric data to their doctors, such as blood glucose, blood pressure, heart rate and rhythm and blood oxygen levels. This data transfer takes place whether the patient is at home, at work or traveling.
mHealth – which describes technologies that create this direct and continuous, wireless link – is seeing amazing growth in 2014. According to a Berg Insight study, use of mHealth devices is expected to increase from 2.8 million in 2012 to about 9.4 million by 2017. And 2014 promises to be a watershed year with more FDA approvals imminent for cellular-enabled health care technologies.
One of the first cellular-enabled devices to receive FDA approval is the Telcare wireless glucose monitor. This device looks and feels like a traditional glucose monitor, but the Telcare unit uses a cellular network to send up-to-the-minute charts to a patient’s wireless device or laptop. Doctors, who also see patient data, track and adjust treatment and medications, when necessary, and they have the ability to send messages of encouragement to patients through the device. This gives rise to a year-round culture of care.
Businesses that self-insure share in the optimism of health care systems about the budding future of mHealth solutions. The Centers for Disease Control reports that American workers with chronic diseases cost employers $226 billion each year. And, according to a study in US Endocrinology, which breaks out costs of workers with diabetes, the average diabetic costs an employer $6,000 more in health-related expenses annually than a non-diabetic employee.
Diabetics who use a mobile health care solution for monitoring diabetes saved their employers an average of $3,300 last year, and that doesn’t even count the money returned to employers due to improved productivity and less absenteeism. mHealth solutions save employers five times the cost of the monitoring program itself.
Beyond the cost savings, patient health is at stake, and better, more accurate health monitoring leads to better outcomes.
Health care providers find that patient care improves for those using mHealth devices for a couple of reasons. First, the patient is aware that health data is shared with the doctor. And second, patients no longer feel unsupported between doctor visits. The mHealth device creates a year-round atmosphere of cooperation and partnership between doctor and patient that benefits us all.
