Page 24 - HME Business, March 2018

Oxygen Care
on staff to be able to remotely monitor a patient that might be having some dif culty.”
In the POC world, remote management has a clear value proposition for the “ eet manage- ment” aspect of the technology — tracking devices in the eld and ensuring they are func- tioning properly — but now the care manage- ment aspect is gaining equal attention among providers.
“I had a conversation last week with a mid- sized HME, located in Omaha, Nebraska,” Van Hise says. “They were very keen on using the CAIREview product that we have to help to differentiate themselves from other DMEs, and to go back to their referral sources to show those referral sources that their patients, under the provider’s care, are being not just monitored, but potentially have interventions when there’s issues that happen with the equipment, or with the patient in the home.”
Van Hise offers a scenario in which a patient has an oxygen concentrator in his home, and
is prescribed to use it for X number of hours a day at X setting. For some reason, the patient is either getting more oxygen than was prescribed, or not getting the correct duration of usage.
“Things like that can set off indicators to the respiratory therapist, or the HME to potentially intervene, reach out, communicate with the patient, and then follow up with the patient if they’re not feeling well and there is something going on to alert the healthcare network as quickly as possible, to try to make a change in their care before the patients ends up showing up in the emergency room,” he explains.
Those sorts of intervention scenarios offer incredible value alone, given that readmissions are a key cost driver in COPD patient care, according to Biola Okunola, global product manager for respiratory and oxygen at Invacare. However, the technology has even further to
go in order to deliver its full value to providers, patients and referrals.
“The industry’s not fully there,” she says. “We’ve not yet matured to the level where we say we can show full compliance. You want to
show that you are taking steps towards helping the referral source, which is the hospital, reduce potential readmission, reduce and improve outcomes.
“So we’re going to assist with remote patient monitoring, or things that help the providers show that they are partnering with the referral source to help that extension of care; that
they are helping the referral source improve outcomes,” Okunola adds.
But even if full compliance management a
la sleep therapy’s current remote monitoring capabilities is a few years down the line, respira- tory providers are expressing interest in current remote monitoring capabilities, Van Hise says.
“They’re very interested,” he says. “At Medtrade Fall, we had many, many large providers from coast to coast wanting demon- strations of the technology, and now we’re actu- ally doing in-house demonstrations.
Van Hise adds that the interest is driven by the cost-savings aspects of eet management and being able to further reduce service calls. And there’s more.
“They also have a good story to tell to the referral sources that they can provide an addi- tional bene t of watching over their patients, by making sure that patients are using the tech- nology correctly, and if there’s any challenges with the device or the technology, then they’ll help intervene before the patient shows back up in their hospital,” he adds.
Varied Technological Approaches
There are few approaches to how POCs are reporting data back to providers. In one scenario, the device connects to a public wireless network to report its data back. This is how O2 Concepts provisions its DNA Technology. Small bits of data are send from the device via a Verizon network back to the reporting system so that the HME provider can see the devices in the eld.
Another method is to leverage Bluetooth. In this arrangement, the device connects to a user’s smart phone via Bluetooth and information is collected in an app and then sent to the manage- ment platform either via WiFi or cellular data.
In either case, this is paradigm with which many patients are growing increasingly familiar, given the number of wearable health devices people current connect to their phones using Bluetooth. Both Invacare and CAIRE take this approach for their remote monitoring.
“We tried to make this as easy to use for patients as possible, and people are becoming more and more accustomed to wearable medical
devices and using their phone for virtually every- thing now, so this is just one more extension
of things that they’re already doing,” says Nick Jacobs, senior director of respiratory at Invacare. Jacobs adds that it also makes nancial sense:
“We understand the compression in reim- bursements, and we’re trying to make this as ef cient and as cost-effective for the provider as possible,” he says. “It’s one thing to know what solution you’re going to provide, the other thing is how to do it in a cost-effective way, without adding an additional cost to the providers.
“There are options out there where you could charge more, but I’d say with Bluetooth we believe that we are covering a good portion of the market, a relevant portion of the market, without adding an additional cost to the provider,” he adds.
And to the end user, the battery and network resources consumed by such an application, are minimal indeed.
“It runs in the background,” Van Hise explains. “It does not take a lot of power to run the device. The equivalent, in terms of data usage, is like sending a text message. The data packet that is sent is like sending a text message every hour, about the device. It really has no impact on the battery life of the device, and from a data stand- point, it’s very, very low data, because it’s just sending a few parameters every hour, or when there’s an alarm condition on the device. ... In terms of data, it’s equivalent to what I’d normally do typically texting throughout the day.”
Solid Growth Foundation
While the real brass ring of remote moni-
toring is, as Okunola underscored, the ability
to manage and prove outcomes for oxygen patients, the here and now “ eet management” reality of remote monitoring technology is very compelling. The ability to track, troubleshoot, and maintain or repair devices in the eld (in some scenarios) shouldn’t go ignored. Any way providers can proactively drive costs and increase client satisfaction is something worth monitoring.
“First of all, it tells you the geolocation of the
“We understand what
the potential is and
where it is likely going
to be going. You can
see what’s already
happening in sleep.”
— Biola Okunola, Invacare Corp.
22 HMEBusiness | March 2018 | hme-business.com
Management Solutions | Technology | Products
“We understand
the compression in reimbursements, and
we’re trying to make
this as ef cient and as cost-effective for the provider as possible.”
— Nick Jacobs, Invacare Corp.