Heart disease continues to hold the first position as the leading cause of death in the United States (1). Moreover, the prevalence of comorbidities that puts a patient at-risk for cardiac illnesses overwhelms the American patient population. Healthcare providers are continually in a balancing act between quality and operational efficiency.
This challenge becomes even more significant for healthcare providers when they are creating care plans for their chronic care patients while having long gaps between patient-provider touchpoints.
The Provider Burden
In the acute care setting, a provider can lay eyes on their patients and after a thorough assessment, change their plan of care each day. In the outpatient setting, where a plan of care is developed and months may pass before a patient is seen again, alterations in treatment become much more challenging. The current state of RCM practice is inconsistent, monitoring is retrospective, and outcomes are variable. Consequently, providers worry about their patients in between office visits and crucial engagements. Utilizing a medical device that is specific to the risk factors for a patient, such as the HomECG+, means that providers can receive valuable data in near-real time to adjunct decision making.
The Patient Burden
Studies indicate that patients who are diagnosed with one or more chronic illnesses can have overwhelming feelings of uncertainty. They fear the development of worsening symptoms, leaving their home, and being able to manage their activities of daily living(2). Another study showed that “patients identified uncertainty about the significance of their symptoms and fear as a result of this uncertainty as primary drivers for their ED visit”(3). Patients are not meant to be subject matter experts in managing their care. Rather, they should feel connected to their provider and trust that care decisions are being made safely.
RCM Can Unburden the Patient and the Provider.
The anxiety felt by both the patients and their clinical teams can be mitigated with a customized plan to provide monitoring between appointments. RCM tethers the patient to the healthcare provider to alleviate the unknown. Patients who are at-risk for developing cardiac arrhythmias should be identified early and given an opportunity to monitor their ECGs from home. Remote Cardiac Monitoring with the right device can provide a full clinical picture for the providers, a daily reassurance for patients, and can bridge the gap between care encounters.
The HomECG+ as a Remote Cardiac Monitoring Solution
The HomECG+ is an FDA-cleared, pocket-sized device which allows patients to capture a medical grade ECG reading in less than a minute.
Remote Cardiac Monitoring allows for:
• Early Detection of Issues
• Enhanced Patient Engagement
• Improved Provider-Patient Communication
• Tailored Care Plans
• Peace of Mind
The cardiac patient population benefits from a daily check-in with their provider and the ECG data bolsters individualized care decisions. This allows for quality and operational efficiency to stay in balance, but most importantly, HomECG+ connects patients, providers, and peace-of-mind.
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