NAACOs Spring 2022 Conference Themes: Sustainable Remote Patient Monitoring
After a two-year long hiatus from in-person events, I have felt more excitement–and resolve– at 2022 healthcare conferences than ever before. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a reckoning in healthcare on several fronts: health disparities, the slow adoption of what proved to be necessary digital health tools, the lack of reimbursement and incentives for adopting such tools, and more. As we come out of the pandemic phase of COVID-19, we’re facing even greater challenges–and perhaps opportunities–around how we will address the growing workforce shortage coupled with the still-elusive disconnect in the amount we spend in healthcare in the U.S. versus the outcomes we achieve.
In April, I attended my first National Association of ACOs conference in Baltimore, where these topics and more were discussed by ACO leaders across the country. One key topic covered was sustainable RPM.
Telehealth (both telemedicine and Remote Patient Monitoring) was broadly adopted and demonstrated real impact on access and outcomes during the pandemic. What do sustainable telehealth and RPM programs look like?
It is no surprise that Remote Patient Monitoring grew in popularity during the Public Health Emergency due to COVID-19. Large hospitals and smaller physician’s clinics alike turned to RPM as a way to ensure continuity of care for patients as in-person visits were limited, and fee-for-service organizations were able to bill for RPM as an additional revenue stream. The sentiments around RPM at the NAACOs Spring conference were: (1) This really works! I’ve had patients call me in response to data, (2) Integration is cost-prohibitive and not standardized, and (3) where should RPM data live?
Let’s start with number 1. At Rimidi, we hear countless examples of how RPM is not only improving clinical outcomes, but improving patient engagement. In fact, in a survey conducted by one of our provider clients, 70% ofpatients said they believed RPM better enabled them to manage their chronic conditions.
When I hear the argument that integration is cost-prohibitive and not standardized, I immediately think of SMART-on-FHIR, a newer, alternative pathway to integration in which user experiences, not just discrete data, are shared across systems, enabling lightning quick implementation. Seriously, we’re talking about integrating third-party apps to major EHRs in weeks, not months. It’s not just an academic hypothetical anymore. At Rimidi, we have many clients using the SMART-on-FHIR pathway to integration.
Lastly, in one session, a panelist was asked if all RPM data needs to live in the EHR. His response: “No, your clinicians will hate you if you clog that up!” With SMART-on-FHIR integrations, the data is accessible in the EHR to any users you designate, yet the discrete data does not have to be stored in the EHR database where it may disrupt the clinician’s workflow. The FHIR APIs allow for writing back of summary of data upon which treatment decisions were made (this is what clinicians really want to document). All RPM data does not need to live in the EHR to improve patient care - which is what’s most important.
About Rimidi
As early pioneers of SMART-on-FHIR, Rimidi’s clinical management platform works directly within your EHR - no separate sign in, no workflow disruption, better clinical efficiency. Rimidi combines patient-generated health data from connected devices or patient reported outcomes measures with clinical data to drive patient-specific clinical insights and actions through embedded clinical decision support cards.
