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Friday, October 2, 2015
NJ Innovation Institute gains $49 million HHS grant
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Thursday, October 1, 2015
76 percent of post-surgery patients prefer telehealth followup: study
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Better’s fast fail, ending health assistance service 30 Oct (US)
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AcuteCare Telemedicine partners with Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital on telestroke program
BUSINESS WIRE- October 1, 2015 – Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital is improving treatment for stroke patients with the launch of a Telestroke program, which allows neurologists to remotely evaluate patients around the clock through real-time conferencing with a Telerobot monitor.
“This new collaboration with Emory Saint Joseph’s is sure to have a significant impact on the patients and communities we serve.”
AcuteCare Telemedicine (ACT) and InTouch Health have partnered with Emory Saint Joseph’s to bring these extended teleneurology services to the hospital. This virtual, high-tech clinical care includes a camera, microphone and speaker in order for the physicians to communicate directly with patients and provide a rapid diagnosis.
The faster a patient receives the proper treatment for stroke, the better the chances for recovery. With this new telemedicine program at Emory Saint Joseph’s, patients may avoid the debilitating effects of stroke that occur due to late diagnosis or delayed administration of clot-busting drugs.
“The advancements in teleneurology not only allow us to access more patients in need of our specialized care, but improves patient outcomes overall,” says Keith Sanders, MD, medical director of Emory Saint Joseph’s Primary Stroke Center. “This new collaboration with Emory Saint Joseph’s is sure to have a significant impact on the patients and communities we serve.”
Patients arriving in the emergency room exhibiting signs of stroke such as numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg, trouble speaking and walking or other symptoms, will have the Telerobot placed at the foot of their bed, so the physician has the ability to assess their condition and communicate treatment recommendations immediately.
Along with Sanders, fellow AcuteCare Telemedicine physicians Matthews Gwynn, MD, Lisa Johnston, MD and James Kiely, MD are on-call 24/7 to work with the Primary Stroke Center Team at the hospital. During the evaluation, the physician asks the patients if they have had any difficulties with speaking and movement, and then encourages them to perform basic tasks, such as lifting their arms and legs and touching their fingers to their nose.
Once the evaluation is complete, the physician makes a diagnosis and communicates treatment recommendations to emergency medicine doctors and the Primary Stroke team members.
“Time is brain,” says Regina Minter, RN, Quality Management Specialist for Emory Saint Joseph’s Primary Stroke Center team, stressing the importance of a rapid stroke diagnosis and treatment. “The Telestroke program will enable us to give tPA in a quicker amount of time for the benefit of our patients,” she says about the FDA-approved medicine that works by dissolving the clot and improving blood flow to the part of the brain being deprived. If administered within the first three hours, tPA may improve the chances of recovering from a stroke.
Emory Saint Joseph’s treats more than 400 stroke patients a year, and joins Emory Johns Creek Hospital as the second hospital within Emory Healthcare to offer the Telestroke program. Since 2009, Emory Saint Joseph’s has been certified as a Primary Stroke Center, and is designed to provide emergent and acute stroke care. The multidisciplinary team includes ancillary, emergency and neurovascular services, a clinical decision unit, neurovascular units and a designated ICU.
Emory Saint Joseph’s has been recognized on the “Target: Stroke Honor Roll” by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA), meaning 50 percent of ischemic stroke patients arriving at the hospital received tPA (door-to-needle time) within 60 minutes of arriving. The AHA/ASA also recognized Emory Saint Joseph’s with the “Get with the Guidelines-Stroke” Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for treating stroke patients with 85 percent or higher adherence to all “Get with the Guidelines-Stroke” achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods.
Stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
Since the inception of the Telestroke program at Emory Saint Joseph’s, patients have already benefitted from the rapid response of the neurologist, which takes an average of four minutes. “The first day we launched the Telestroke program, a patient was admitted with acute symptoms of stroke. After careful assessment, we were able to administer tPA immediately with great success,” Sanders says.
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MedZed Raises $3.2 Million For Development of Innovative Telemedicine-Enabled House Call Model
PRNewswire – October 1, 2015 – MedZed, LLC announced today that it has raised $3.2 million from strategic, accredited investors to develop its telemedicine-enabled house call model. MedZed uses a combination of in-home caregivers and technology to connect high-risk patients to their medical team.
MedZed began conducting home-based care in Atlanta in 2014 and expanded to New York this past summer. During the fourth quarter of 2015, the company is launching a program with a large healthcare delivery system in Southern California.
“This round of funding puts us in a strong cash position to enhance our technology, communications platform, and grow our management and clinical teams,” said Scott Schnell, MedZed co-founder and chief executive officer. “Our prior experiences of building large scale service companies and demonstrated success using caregivers and technology in the Atlanta market enabled us to raise the capital necessary to expand. We believe our services offers an improved patient experience while reducing costs for risk-bearing organizations.”
The company continues to strengthen the team by naming Neil A. Solomon, MD as Co-founder, Chief Strategist & Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Solomon said, “Today’s healthcare system demands high standards of quality outcomes, patient satisfaction, and affordability. We developed a new model of telemedicine to bring the delivery system to patients and avoid costly acute care. We are providing a service to the very patients that our healthcare system is failing. These are also the patients who cost the most to programs like Medicare and Medicaid.”
As hospital systems, insurers and Accountable Care Organizations embrace value-based payment models, MedZed is well positioned to serve frail, high-risk and post discharge patients in their homes.
About MedZed
MedZed partners with providers and insurers to “re-imagine the house call.” The company connects high-risk patients with their medical team in the comfort of the patient’s home. Using telemedicine communications, proprietary technology and remote medical devices, the MedZed caregiver is able to assist physicians with real-time examinations and treatments. This combination of service and technology keeps patients healthier, improves the patient experience, and lowers healthcare costs by reducing expensive and unnecessary hospital utilization.
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Eagle Telemedicine Rural Initiative Delivers Better Care for South Central Kansas Medical Center
ER collaboration with remote telehospitalists brings timely admission care with enhanced documentation to ER staff, along with better communication and tighter teamwork among staff at Arkansas City facility
PRNewswire – October 1, 2015 – Eagle Telemedicine, an independent, physician-led company that develops and manages inpatient telemedicine practices for hospitals, will share information about its services and successes with rural hospitals at the 14th Critical Access Hospital Conference in Kansas City, MO, Sept. 29-Oct. 2. The gathering is sponsored by the National Rural Health Association.
In particular, Eagle will discuss the breakthroughs achieved with its Kansas physician group, Sunflower Telemedicine, a “By Kansans, For Kansans,” telemedicine rural initiative that is helping the 37-bed South Central Kansas Medical Center (SCKMC) in Arkansas City achieve numerous gains in timely, quality hospitalist care. Eagle Telemedicine is helping rural hospitals reduce patient transfers and improve communication between physicians and nursing staff around the clock.
Documentation accuracy vital for rural hospitals ”As a pioneer of the telemedicine industry, we have spent the past five years honing our practice model to meet specific hospital needs,” said Talbot “Mac” McCormick, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Eagle Telemedicine. “We support the work of NRHA members everywhere, and we are eager to share the breakthroughs our Sunflower initiative has helped SCKMC achieve. Our telemedicine specialists have greatly improved documentation accuracy in the ER during the admissions process. In doing so, our program helps ensure the hospital gets all the Medicare and private insurance reimbursement it deserves for the services it performs.”
Brian Hunt, MD, and two other Kansas hospitalists staff the telemedicine program at SCKMC. They are passionate about the contribution they are making to the hospital through their remote visits. “We interface electronically in the ER with the physicians and physician assistants who staff it, and on a 24×7 basis we are available to ensure care is timely and documentation is thorough when they are admitting patients,” said Hunt.
“For example, we can be sure that sepsis or pneumonia present at admission is accurately noted with the correct Diagnostic-Related Group (DRG) code, and thereby increase the hospital’s reimbursement by thousands of dollars. Most physicians just want to care for patients. Documentation is sometimes an afterthought, and our telemedicine team ensures that it gets done correctly, too.”
Understanding what full communication can be
Virgil Watson, SCKMC’s CEO, said that after one month of the telemedicine program, it is too early to produce metrics showing increased reimbursement rates, but he is confident that the program is helping improve them. “Our medical director is elated at the documentation she is getting,” he said. “There are two sides of patient care—the care side, and the reimbursement side. As the guy who stays up at night wondering how we can pay our bills, I have confidence now that we are doing an exceptional job ensuring we get all the reimbursement we are due.”
In addition, Watson sees a marked drop in the number of patient transfers. “We have only had to transfer one patient this month, and that was for good cause. We’re able to keep more patients now and be confident they will get the care they need from our telehospitalist team.”
John Jones, who functions as Director of Nursing at SCKMC, sees additional benefits from the telemedicine program. The telehospitalist physicians are available to provide immediate response to nurses on duty from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Their quick accessibility makes a big difference.
“Even if it’s the middle of the night, our nurses can get a live demonstration from our telehospitalists that is carried via teleconnection to the monitor on the telemedicine robot at SCKMC,” Jones said. “Good communication is the single biggest factor determining a patient’s outcome, and our nurses and telehospitalists have fully rounded communication now from a team perspective. As a result, our nurses are learning to think like the doctors they work with, and they get comfort and assurance from the physicians that they are doing the right thing.” The telehospitalist physicians are also available to talk by phone and to text with nursing staff when their advice is needed.
A quicker solution to the physician shortage
Jason Kimball, MD, grew up and went to school in Kansas. After his hospitalist career took him to Atlanta with Eagle Hospital Physicians, he is happy to be back in Kansas, where he can be closer to his family and work with the Sunflower initiative as one of the SCKMC telephysicians.
“It’s all about the patients and keeping them close to their homes for exceptional medical care,” he said. “It’s great for the nurses, too. More than one have told me how amazing the technology is and how they wish they had had it years ago. For us physicians, it’s a pleasure to be supporting them, as well as nurse practitioners and physicians. Telemedicine helps them play a bigger role in their hospitals and become real cornerstones in the care that is provided.”
For patients, the response has also been positive. “They appreciate immediate access to a physician,” Watson said. “What we’re offering is a quicker solution to the physician shortage than anything else that is available. Patients can see it. And it’s a revelation for our employees.”
Pioneers in inpatient telemedicine
As a pioneer in inpatient telemedicine, Eagle has spent more than five years perfecting its telemedicine service models of care and tailoring them to specific settings, such as rural hospitals where telemedicine can bring specialized care to the bedside where it might otherwise be unavailable.
Benefits to rural hospitals include:
• Provision of care to patients in their home communities
• Around-the-clock access to expertise
• Improved quality of care
• Reduced out-transfer of adult medical patients
• Increased admissions and revenue
• Hands-on access to education and training for NPPs and other staff
“Telemedicine is most effective when applied where physician resources are scarce and patient care is time sensitive,” said Dr. McCormick. “And it is providing hope to rural hospitals in an era when closure is a very real possibility unless new models of care are deployed. We look forward to sharing information about our new services and successes with attendees at the NRHA conference.”
About Eagle Telemedicine
Founded in 2008, Eagle Telemedicine was one of the first companies to emerge in the telemedicine physician service arena and continues to serve as a pioneer in the industry today, leading practical solutions, management tools and innovation through the use of telemedicine. Eagle currently offers telemedicine programs and solutions in: Hospitalist Medicine, Stroke and Acute Neurology, Psychiatric Care and Critical Care. The company was launched through Eagle Hospital Physicians, which develops and supports hospitalist physician practices serving hospitals in more than a dozen states. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/1H76EKN.
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