Written By: Kelly Buckman
In an era when healthcare is increasingly driven by technology as a means of automating processes and sharing information, what does the future look like for hospitals? It may not be what you think.
Case in point is Mercy Virtual Care Center in Chesterfield, MO. At first sight it looks like any other hospital, with doctors and nurses checking vital signs, talking with patients, and creating treatment plans. But unlike hospitals that most of us are used to, there is one thing missing: patients.
At Mercy, doctors and nurses treat patients from carrels with monitors showing patients in remote rooms. From here, they can see graphs with bloodwork and images of internal organs and limbs, and scan lists of issues that computer apps have determined they should look out for.
Called a “virtual hospital” Mercy is on the cutting edge of healthcare technology. Unlike a traditional hospital, a virtual hospital has no need for rooms, as providers care for patients who are elsewhere, in an intensive care unit far away, or at home, in their own bedrooms. The natural result of a trend in healthcare that includes hospital consolidation, advances in remote monitoring technology and changes in the way medicine is paid for, the VH allows chronically ill patients to remain at home as much as possible and avoid hospitalizations that strain their finances and expose them to stress, infection, and other dangers. *
When we think of “virtual care”, many of us envision a scene from a sci-fi movie, where a patient with electrodes hooked up to him is monitored by a robot buzzing around a white sterile room. It may surprise you to know that one of the benefits of virtual hospital care is the “human factor”, in the form of more regular interaction between patient and caregiver. Monitoring patients remotely allows healthcare providers to check in more often than they could with only in-person visits. With regular monitoring comes more individualized care and less needless hospitalizations, as the tele-provider can better determine when a patient is in crisis versus experiencing a change in a reading that is actually normal for them. If a crisis does occur, the provider can call in home health care nurses, who can run additional tests to determine if hospitalization is necessary.
Of course, there are certain types of patient care that still need to be provided in person (complex surgery and high-risk emergent care, for example). Far from striving to make standard “brick and mortar” hospitals obsolete, the virtual hospital aims to work in partnership with providers, by monitoring and interpreting data in real time, allowing them to spend more time attending to patients, and less time pouring over machines.
In fact, the goal of the VH isn’t to cure all illnesses and heal all injuries virtually, but rather to provide a level of care that prevents the patient from needing to go to the hospital in the first place, or to remain there for an extended period. Whereas a traditional hospital waits for a patient to walk into an ER, Mercy Virtual providers proactively reach out before they experience symptoms, placing video calls to patients using two-way cameras that allow them to monitor vital signs in real time using tools such as pulse oximeters that plug into an iPad. And for patients who are in the hospital, cameras can get close enough to check the label on an IV bag or detect breathing problems, sensing changes in a patient’s condition before a bedside nurse is aware of them. Under this model, when a patient crashes in a small ICU somewhere far away, the entire staff can attend to them while remote nurses continue to monitor other patients.
The benefit is twofold: more accurate preventive care, which results in an increased chance of saving lives, as well as reduced time in the hospital, which means decreased cost of care.
According to data from the Scripps Translational Science Institute, one night in the hospital in the U.S. costs $4,600 on average, just for the bed. You can get a lot of data plans and devices for that amount of money.
In fact, Mercy Virtual is ahead of the curve financially due to Medicare payment reforms that have converted some of the agency’s payments into lump sums for treating specific illnesses. Since Mercy’s patients can leave the hospital much faster than average, it can pocket the money it doesn’t need for longer stays.” In addition to reducing length of stay, many hospital re-admissions, which add $41.3 billion to hospital costs a year, can be prevented through the ability to provide care when and where needed. *
In light of these savings, it’s not difficult to envision a care model where providers are rewarded for keeping patients healthy rather than for treating them when they get sick.**
Though the “hospital without beds” concept can be viewed as an extreme implementation, it proves as a good example of how an innovative idea will influence the implementation of hospital-based care in the future. The interface of improving patient care, and reducing costs, in an industry increasingly making utilization of technological advances is an important theme to watch.
--
Kelly Buckman is a healthcare IT expert and field expert blogger for Barracuda Consulting.
Kelly has almost a decade of experience as a Technical Support Engineer/ Analyst in the field of Healthcare IT, over 20 years in IT Support, and several years of experience in Project Management. She has a B.A. from Mount Holyoke, Masters degree from UMass Amherst, and lists her skills as the ability to analyze and resolve various types of application, server and network issues, and to communicate complex ideas effectively.
She is also the mother of 3 sons, ages 19, 17, and 11, lives in western Massachusetts, and enjoys solving puzzles, reading, and travelling.
Please leave your comments below. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, click here: https://tinyletter.com/barracuda-consulting. To purchase a full report on this subject, or to access our complete suite of healthcare, and IT advisory services please contact us: https://www.barracuda-consulting.net/contact.
In an era when healthcare is increasingly driven by technology as a means of automating processes and sharing information, what does the future look like for hospitals? It may not be what you think.
Case in point is Mercy Virtual Care Center in Chesterfield, MO. At first sight it looks like any other hospital, with doctors and nurses checking vital signs, talking with patients, and creating treatment plans. But unlike hospitals that most of us are used to, there is one thing missing: patients.
At Mercy, doctors and nurses treat patients from carrels with monitors showing patients in remote rooms. From here, they can see graphs with bloodwork and images of internal organs and limbs, and scan lists of issues that computer apps have determined they should look out for.
Called a “virtual hospital” Mercy is on the cutting edge of healthcare technology. Unlike a traditional hospital, a virtual hospital has no need for rooms, as providers care for patients who are elsewhere, in an intensive care unit far away, or at home, in their own bedrooms. The natural result of a trend in healthcare that includes hospital consolidation, advances in remote monitoring technology and changes in the way medicine is paid for, the VH allows chronically ill patients to remain at home as much as possible and avoid hospitalizations that strain their finances and expose them to stress, infection, and other dangers. *
When we think of “virtual care”, many of us envision a scene from a sci-fi movie, where a patient with electrodes hooked up to him is monitored by a robot buzzing around a white sterile room. It may surprise you to know that one of the benefits of virtual hospital care is the “human factor”, in the form of more regular interaction between patient and caregiver. Monitoring patients remotely allows healthcare providers to check in more often than they could with only in-person visits. With regular monitoring comes more individualized care and less needless hospitalizations, as the tele-provider can better determine when a patient is in crisis versus experiencing a change in a reading that is actually normal for them. If a crisis does occur, the provider can call in home health care nurses, who can run additional tests to determine if hospitalization is necessary.
Of course, there are certain types of patient care that still need to be provided in person (complex surgery and high-risk emergent care, for example). Far from striving to make standard “brick and mortar” hospitals obsolete, the virtual hospital aims to work in partnership with providers, by monitoring and interpreting data in real time, allowing them to spend more time attending to patients, and less time pouring over machines.
In fact, the goal of the VH isn’t to cure all illnesses and heal all injuries virtually, but rather to provide a level of care that prevents the patient from needing to go to the hospital in the first place, or to remain there for an extended period. Whereas a traditional hospital waits for a patient to walk into an ER, Mercy Virtual providers proactively reach out before they experience symptoms, placing video calls to patients using two-way cameras that allow them to monitor vital signs in real time using tools such as pulse oximeters that plug into an iPad. And for patients who are in the hospital, cameras can get close enough to check the label on an IV bag or detect breathing problems, sensing changes in a patient’s condition before a bedside nurse is aware of them. Under this model, when a patient crashes in a small ICU somewhere far away, the entire staff can attend to them while remote nurses continue to monitor other patients.
The benefit is twofold: more accurate preventive care, which results in an increased chance of saving lives, as well as reduced time in the hospital, which means decreased cost of care.
According to data from the Scripps Translational Science Institute, one night in the hospital in the U.S. costs $4,600 on average, just for the bed. You can get a lot of data plans and devices for that amount of money.
In fact, Mercy Virtual is ahead of the curve financially due to Medicare payment reforms that have converted some of the agency’s payments into lump sums for treating specific illnesses. Since Mercy’s patients can leave the hospital much faster than average, it can pocket the money it doesn’t need for longer stays.” In addition to reducing length of stay, many hospital re-admissions, which add $41.3 billion to hospital costs a year, can be prevented through the ability to provide care when and where needed. *
In light of these savings, it’s not difficult to envision a care model where providers are rewarded for keeping patients healthy rather than for treating them when they get sick.**
Though the “hospital without beds” concept can be viewed as an extreme implementation, it proves as a good example of how an innovative idea will influence the implementation of hospital-based care in the future. The interface of improving patient care, and reducing costs, in an industry increasingly making utilization of technological advances is an important theme to watch.
--
Kelly Buckman is a healthcare IT expert and field expert blogger for Barracuda Consulting.
Kelly has almost a decade of experience as a Technical Support Engineer/ Analyst in the field of Healthcare IT, over 20 years in IT Support, and several years of experience in Project Management. She has a B.A. from Mount Holyoke, Masters degree from UMass Amherst, and lists her skills as the ability to analyze and resolve various types of application, server and network issues, and to communicate complex ideas effectively.
She is also the mother of 3 sons, ages 19, 17, and 11, lives in western Massachusetts, and enjoys solving puzzles, reading, and travelling.
Please leave your comments below. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, click here: https://tinyletter.com/barracuda-consulting. To purchase a full report on this subject, or to access our complete suite of healthcare, and IT advisory services please contact us: https://www.barracuda-consulting.net/contact.
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