The IT team at Memorial Hospital & Health Systems in South Bend, Ind. came up with an innovative remote monitoring system for high risk Obstetrics (OB) patients. The patients take home a Health Guide monitoring device that can perform a health status assessment of vital signs, survey questions, and has an interactive visual observation through two-way video calling. The nurses monitor the patients weekly through web conferencing to ensure that the patient is doing well, following recommended guidelines, or have any questions. The beauty of this monitoring system is that it is all done outside of of their weekly OB visits.
The only downside is that there can only be 10 patients in the OB telemedicine program. The devices are given to patients who are diagnosed around 20 weeks with gestational diabetes and/or are at a high risk for pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure). The patient will make weekly logs in a logbook with their blood sugar levels and blood pressure readings and report them in their weekly OB visits via video conferencing. It's still to early to tell about the specific metrics of improvement but one thing's for sure is that is has lowered the cost of treatment. With this remote monitoring system, patient irregularities can easily be detected and the doctor can intervene without the patient coming in to visit. In a November 2006 study, the Annals of Internal Medicine outlined a total of $5,439 cost of savings with the benefit of having a high-risk OB monitoring system from home.
With the success of this technology for patients, CIO Steve Huffman is looking to make further use of this technology by incorporating a bigger population of disease states, such as those patient who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Check out the success stories here: High risk OB Monitoring
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