It’s no secret that providers are burnt out. Clinicians are working to manage larger populations of patients – many of those with more complicated health issues and chronic conditions – while working to deliver quality care to each individual. Unfortunately, electronic health records (EHRs) and other healthcare technology can often be burdensome for providers, resulting in half of their time being spent on “desktop medicine” – activities such as entering notes into EHRs, reviewing test results, and communicating with patients via patient portals.
Today many are willing to share their patient-generated health data (PGHD) with their provider if it means improving their health. In remote monitoring programs, PGHD can inform care decisions by providing more timely and in-depth information about a patient’s activities and biometrics outside the hospital setting. This can lead to more proactive interventions and better management of conditions by both patients and their care teams. However, some providers express concern over the integration of more data into clinical systems that may already be onerous for care teams.
In order to create remote monitoring programs that allow providers to spend less time on data entry and other activities that keep them in front of the computer screen and more time with patients, it’s necessary to build a data-driven program that lives within existing clinical workflows. Remote monitoring programs must not require disparate systems or dozens of extra clicks, or they will not provide the efficiency necessary to make the program worthwhile for clinicians. Despite this, personnel barriers to implementing remote care programs may still remain.
Nearly 30 percent of respondents to a new survey of hospital and health system leaders said the absence of a nurse or care manager to review PGHD is a top barrier to implementing a remote monitoring program. To incorporate PGHD without a dedicated team of virtual care nurses, there is a need for strong program infrastructure, suggests Ares Health Systems President and CEO Dr. Martin Entwistle.
“We’ve found when you get your ducks in a row, and you make PGHD positively impact physicians’ work … they see the value through their experiences and it reinforces them to use it more,” said Entwistle. Data must be integrated effectively to clearly show trends in data and elevate critical data to inform more proactive interventions and treatment amendments.
According to Entwistle, the data becomes more meaningful when it is integrated into a program of care that creates a feedback loop between the patient and provider. Data-driven virtual care programs can enable the management of the most at-risk patients more effectively without placing an additional burden on care teams.
To read more about best practices for the deployment of operationally efficient remote monitoring programs, read the latest survey.
Missed the last blog discussing the financial ROI and new reimbursement opportunities for remote monitoring programs? Read it here.