Novant Health Selects Cardiocom to Provide Telemonitoring for Presbyterian Hospital Heart Failure Program

Novant Health has announced a partnership with Cardiocom Multi-Disease Management, a developer and manufacturer of medical devices for remote management of chronic disease patients. Novant will implement the Cardiocom System in its Presbyterian Heart Failure Program, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Presbyterian Hospital is one of the largest healthcare facilities in the Carolinas.

Offering the Cardiocom telemonitoring system in the Presbyterian Heart Failure Program is yet another way that Novant Health is using technology to enhance its services and improve healthcare delivery. "The Cardiocom System makes objective, realtime health data available everyday to patients' physicians," said Stacy Steele, director of community care services. "We plan to use the Cardiocom system to provide better care coordination for Presbyterian patients with heart failure."

The patient-centric Presbyterian program identifies heart failure patients at point of hospital discharge and refers them to the telemonitoring program. The Telescale device features friendly voice prompts to patients to query their health status and measure daily weight.

The Cardiocom OmniVisor clinical management software system allows nurses at the Presbyterian Heart Failure Program to remotely monitor a large population of patients while providing high-quality care that follows national practice standards. Patients who need assistance can be contacted, based on their daily telemonitoring report, without having to wait for a clinic appointment. Nurses can work with physicians to intervene and adjust medications or care plans. They can also provide focused education and coaching designed to assist patients with the management of their heart failure in order to slow disease progression and avoid unnecessary hospitalization.

Novant Health is a not-for-profit, integrated healthcare system in western North Carolina that serves more than 3.5 million people in 34 counties reaching from southern Virginia to northern South Carolina. Novant Health consists of eight hospitals and an 800-physician medical group with 240 clinic locations.

Honeywell HomMed will partner with Procura, LLC, a global provider of information systems and services for healthcare entities, to help healthcare providers advance how they digitally store patient records and improve healthcare solutions. Aligning with Procura’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) system allows Honeywell to integrate patient record storage in a digital format with Honeywell HomMed’s Telehealth LifeStream Platform and Genesis DM telemonitors.

“Studies have demonstrated that telehealth improves outcomes by helping to ensure better care for patients and greater efficiencies for healthcare providers,” said Terry Duesterhoeft, vice president of marketing and product development for Honeywell HomMed. "Procura’s expertise and progressive customer solutions will help us deliver the broadest range of telehealth solutions in the industry, now and in the future.”

By integrating the data collected via Honeywell HomMed’s LifeStream Platform and the Genesis DM telemonitoring devices with Procura’s EHR system, patients will be able to communicate information such as key vital signs from the telemonitoring device in their homes to the EHR system. This in turn provides the caregiver with the most current patient records available for coordinated patient care. In addition, Procura's system is able to identify which patients qualify as telehealth patients and if a telemonitoring device is present in their homes. Information needed to create a patient record is then transferred from the EHR system to the telemonitoring device system in order to alleviate duplicate entries by home health agencies.

“Collaborating with Honeywell HomMed will further the case for increased care in the home," said Warren Brown, CEO of Procura. "Clinical staff, regulatory bodies, funding authorities, patients and families now have a comprehensive EHR available to them. By working together, we can provide the vital information they need to improve care and decrease costs."

Walsall and Hull have announced the launch of large mainstream deployments of telehealth to monitor people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure (CHF) in their own homes. Both Primary Care Trusts are using Genesis monitors from leading telehealth and telecare specialist Tunstall to ensure best use of healthcare resources, reduce COPD and CHF related hospital admissions, support independent living and deliver an improved quality of life for patients.

COPD kills 30,000 people every year in England and Wales alone, making it the fifth biggest killer. The cost to Walsall PCT for each patient admitted to Accident and Emergency can be as high as $4,600, and it is hoped that the telehealth solutions from Tunstall will prevent hundreds of avoidable admissions. Previous research has shown that use of Genesis monitors can reduce the need for hospitalization by over 50 percent and for emergency care visits by nearly two thirds.

Tony Diaram, Project Manager at Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council said, “This telehealth project will give patients truly person-centered care, helping them to manage their condition and avoid the constant cycle of hospitalization. Tunstall Genesis units support greater independence and encourage better self-management of COPD, especially within hard-to-reach communities.”

The telehealth program being run by Hull PCT uses Tunstall Genesis units to let people monitor their weight and blood pressure, enabling daily accurate monitoring without needing the person to visit their GP. Patients’ stress levels, which are a contributing factor to the condition, are also reduced, as it keeps them in a comfortable and familiar environment.

Clare Brown, Locality Manager for Hull City council’s Community Care services and Telecare Project Lead said, “Previously, during acute phases of CHF, we would often have to hospitalize patients for long periods to simply monitor their condition, when they were in fact well enough to be at home.

The Tunstall Genesis monitors allow us to track a patient’s condition closely while they remain in their home, which is proven to help their well-being, yet we can still react quickly if their condition worsens. It truly is a win-win situation for both patients and PCT.”  

Mayor Frank Luis da Cunha Garcia needs just a few words to describe how technology has changed life for the better in this remote island city, “Intel opened a window in the middle of the Amazon Forest for the people of Parintins to see the world.”

A year after Intel Corp. and several technology companies installed a high-speed WiMAX wireless network in Parintins giving 100,000 inhabitants access to medical, educational and information resources, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett returned to see the progress achieved to date.

Barrett regularly referenced the digital village pilot project, describing it as a showcase of expanding what’s possible through technology. The project involved providing high-speed Internet access to a primary healthcare center, two public schools, a community center and Amazon State University. Intel also donated and installed telemedicine equipment at the healthcare center and computer labs at the two schools.

Barrett visited Centro de Saude Irmao Francisco Galliani, the clinic where Intel helped launch a telemedicine project last year. The program allows the 32 doctors in Parintins to interact with colleagues at Amazon State University in Manaus and São Paulo University via the Internet, using telemedicine systems and videoconferencing technology to enable long-distance training, real-time consultation with specialists and remote diagnostics. To date, nearly 100 patients in Parintins have had the opportunity to be assisted by specialists in Manaus.

Springboarding on the project’s success, the municipality will build a larger telemedicine facility on the site to accommodate program expansion. The telemedicine clinic’s doctors, who currently focus on dermatology diagnosis due to a high incidence of skin cancers, hope to enlarge its scope to include health issues such as HIV, tuberculosis and diabetes.

Consult A Doctor Unveils Nationwide Consumer-Directed Telemedicine Service Providing 24/7 Phone and Secure Email Medical Consultations

Consult A Doctor is focused on becoming a leading provider of consumer- driven telemedicine services that improve health and reduce health care costs 10 percent to 25 percent or more for employer-sponsored plans, individuals and families. For companies, Consult A Doctor's programs empower employees to be healthier and reduce absenteeism by replacing up to 66 percent of unnecessary doctors' office visits, giving members alternatives to seeing their primary care physician for purely informational concerns and basic care. Providing easy and immediate access to doctors for non-critical health questions and concerns will reduce healthcare premiums, claims, and sick leave while increasing employee wellness, morale and productivity.

"Corporations are reducing health care benefits while passing higher costs onto their employees and everybody is losing. Consult A Doctor has just what the doctor ordered with innovative telemedicine solutions to lower healthcare costs and create healthier employees," states Wolf Shlagman, Consult A Doctor co-founder and CEO.

The American Medical Association estimates that 70 percent of all doctor visits may be just informational and unnecessary, and can be handled by telephone or email using a service like Consult A Doctor.

Eceptionist, Inc. has unveiled an addition to the Eceptionist family of products with the release of its Triage Manager product. Eceptionist’s Triage Manager is a solution that allows healthcare organizations to manage the request and referral of services both into and out of the healthcare economy.

Triage Manager is a tool that organizations can use across multiple enterprises to optimize and efficiently triage patients to ensure that each patient is put on the right care plan and that each service providing organization is able to optimize its resources. It is a Web-based solution that supports multiple facilities, multiple time zones and multiple services. Triage Manager works seamlessly with Eceptionist’s other tools including Scheduler Manager, Wait List Manager, Telehealth Manager and all of Eceptionist’s administrative and reporting tools.

Eceptionist supports extra enterprise scheduling, multiple forms of Telemedicine services, Case Management, Care Pathways, Protocols and Reporting for facilities and corporations around the world. Organizations use the Eceptionist platform to better manage healthcare as it is delivered across departments, sites, communities and countries.

Respironics, Inc. has launched EverFlo, a five-liter, stationary oxygen concentrator and newest member of the company’s Freedom series of oxygen therapy products. The 31-pound concentrator is designed to provide oxygen therapy to prescribed patients while reducing the costs associated with the delivery of therapy such as maintenance, unscheduled patient calls and visits, and shipping and storage. These nonequipment-related expenses account for 72 percent of the costs of providing home oxygen therapy to Medicare beneficiaries, according to a 2006 Morrison Informatics study published by the American Association for Homecare.

For the patient’s convenience and comfort, the lighter weight EverFlo concentrator uses less power and produces less heat and noise. And with EverFlo, patients are not required to replace a filter. “The new EverFlo represents an evolution in five-liter oxygen concentrators because it is significantly lighter, smaller and easier to use and maintain and offers feature enhancements that are specifically designed to further help reduce operating costs for the homecare business owner,” said John Frank, vice president and general manager of Respironics’ Home Respiratory business. “That translates into a better solution for homecare providers and patients.”

ATA 2008
April 6-8, 2008
Seattle, Washington

ATA's Annual Meeting is a forum for the healthcare industry to discuss clinical and business issues related to telemedicine. The meeting includes hundreds of presentations, posters, workshops and exhibits.