Defying Distance: How Unified Communications Is Transforming Health Care The business of healthcare today is shifting away from the traditional fee- for- service model, towards a more holistic approach: one that better addresses the challenges of population wellness, provides more substantial follow- up home care for patients, and seeks to reduce the rate of costly readmissions. As these changes in favor of Accountable Care continue to propagate through our health system, these challenges are increasingly being met with a new perspective on caregiver collaboration and with a new generation of Unified Communications technology designed with patient wellness in mind. Leveraging state of the art video conferencing, medical professionals can see their patients remotely, hear diagnostic information firsthand and consult on effective care. This new accessibility is connecting physicians with their patients more powerfully than was ever possible before. In the United States, health care spending currently grows about four percent each year, a nearly $3 trillion annual national expense that consumes roughly 17% of the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, however, the high cost of American health has not led to correspondingly improved patient outcomes. The impact of chronic disease grows, while costly hospital readmissions continue to eat away at hospital operating budgets. The healthcare industry, however, is moving forward with new approaches to clinical care and patient wellness, and Unified Communications technology is poised to play a major role in that transformation. The Expensive Cycle of Health Decline When a health condition is not adequately treated, it will get worse and subsequently, much more expensive to treat. Unfortunately, many seek medical attention only when a problem becomes too great to be ignored, leading to a vicious circle of worsening conditions and increasingly expensive care. Most reform in today s health care industry is focused on breaking and reversing that cycle, transforming the vicious circle of health decline into a virtuous cycle of improved population health and more controlled social health care costs. The main culprits in the downward spiral are not a mystery. In fact, they are very well known and thoroughly understood. An aging population. As the post- World War II generation reaches their elder years, a very large influx of aging Americans is adding significant strain onto an already taxed national health infrastructure. With an older population, more people must be cared for, and their health issues grow more complex to treat. This in turn drives a forceful trend towards increased health care costs.
Chronic disease. As noted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), preventable chronic disease is by far the greatest danger to the American public. More than three- quarters of annual U.S. health care costs are spent fighting illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and obesity- related issues. Chronic disease claims 7 in 10 deaths each year in America, and nearly half of all U.S. adults today live with at least one such condition. These diseases account for 81% of hospital admissions, 91% of all prescriptions and 76% of all visits to physicians. They are also the most preventable medical problems. Risky and unhealthy behavior, insufficient physical activity, poor nutrition and substance abuse are responsible for the vast majority of chronic diseases and so, the vast majority of today s health care crisis. Hospitalizations. When a health condition worsens into an acute crisis, the resulting hospitalization ensures that the necessary treatment will in fact often be the most expensive one possible. Hospitalizations account for nearly one third of annual U.S. health care spending, and rehospitalization readmission of a patient for the same or related condition within 30 days of discharge adds another $25 billion each year. Nearly 20% of Medicare patients are rehospitalized within a month of discharge. Once again, chronic disease is the major culprit, as the highest documented readmission rates have been seen for congestive heart failure, renal failure and other similar conditions. However, communication and post- discharge planning and care are also significant contributors to these harrowing statistics. Patients who don t understand care instructions, don t follow up with their physicians following discharge, or lack an adequate social support structure are much more likely to be readmitted for another expensive hospital stay to treat the same or related conditions. As millions more Americans enter the health system and fewer doctors are available to care for them, attention is being increasing focused on communication, and on innovating new ways to increase the quality and efficacy of doctor- patient interaction. By reaching patients more quickly, more thoroughly and with much greater focus on addressing the circumstances preceding and following the medical crisis, health care professionals today strive to break this self- perpetuating cycle of declining health. Community Connectedness and the Health Care Relationship Effective health maintenance is a social project. From disease epidemics to high risk social behaviors, the crises that drive rising health care costs are very often the product of social causes, and have effects that ripple through general populations. This means that creating a next generation health care system is an effort that must begin in population health working towards an ideal of healthy communities, which in turn support the good health of productive individuals.
At the heart of this shift towards population health is, again, communication. From video teleconferencing advances and remote pharmacy services to the immediate availability of urgent care and stroke specialists via UC applications, medical organizations now have much greater power to bolster the strength of the three major types of health care relationships. One- to- One. When most people think about health care relationships, they immediately think of the interactions between doctor and patient. This one- to- one relationship is the face of medical care, and what people remember most about their experiences with the medical system. These relationships, however, extend beyond the typical doctor s visit. One- to- one relationships in medical care also include interactions between health care professionals, between a patient and a family member, and other direct personal contacts in situations where important decisions must be made. HD video teleconferencing technologies have revolutionized this type of relationship, starting with creating more efficient systems of hospital patient discharge planning. Using video- based patient education and wellness applications, hospitals are now able to significantly reduce the risk of avoidable rehospitalizations. Practitioners, patients, family and case managers can now easily collaborate on effective discharge plans via live multipoint video, and additional assets can be included in the process to address communication and language issues, needed outpatient resources and expectation management in post- stay care. Finally, tele- health communication systems empower the health care professional to visit the patient virtually in their home to provide care. One- to- Many. Often overlooked in health care thinking is the power of the one- to- many relationship, the ability for a single practitioner to deliver medical support to a group or community of patients at once. This is another area being revolutionized by high definition video teleconferencing and a new generation of call scheduling platforms. Doctors can connect with patients at a distance, establish peer groups to share success stories and best practices, and provide live educational wellness sessions to multiple community centers simultaneously. Eliminating the need for costly and time consuming travel, a single health care professional can effectively serve in many places at once providing the benefit of their experience and education for entire communities. Many- to- Many. In the world of modern health management, effective collaboration brings results to the communities that need them most. While the face of the patient experience is the direct, one- to- one relationship between patient and doctor, the efficacy of that relationship relies greatly on the ability of groups to efficiently communicate with each other. Using HD video teleconferencing platforms, groups of hospital working teams can meet as easily virtually as if they were in the same room. Community centers can collaborate together to create virtual support groups, educational programs and patient workshops. By facilitating the creation of new communities based on the ideals of population health, successful recovery and social support, these virtual video meeting halls will play crucial roles in the future of American health care.
There is no question that video teleconferencing and other next generation Unified Communications solutions are already playing a major part in advancing the goals of health care today. Adopting telemedicine tools and connecting two individual sites in collaborative health management, however, is the easy part. The greater challenge lies in building a sustainable, scalable operation that will not ultimately collapse under its own complexity. Health care is complicated. But with the right technology strategy and the help of industry partners who understand the complexities of the modern medical world realizing the dream of effective, cost efficient virtual health care is a very achievable aim. DistribuCare: How Carousel Industries and Polycom Join The Solution At Carousel Industries, we and our video conferencing partner Polycom are thinking ahead to the important challenges facing medical professionals in this era of accountable care. How do we help reduce rehospitalizations? How do we effectively track and improve patient outcomes? How do we reduce costs, while offering long term scalability and cost sustainability? How do we leverage the power of a single health care professional for the greatest good? How do we become a valuable part of the solution, rather than a new part of the problem? DistribuCare is the product of that thinking, a partnership tightly linking the video teleconferencing strengths of Polycom with Carousel Industries health integration expertise. This bundled solution offers a video communications platform that effectively creates a virtual waiting room, connecting portable HD video endpoints with a highly efficient scheduling system and redundant UC architecture. Together, the DistribuCare platform empowers health care organizations large and small to create scalable communication networks for their practitioners without the need to heavily invest in overly expensive, inflexible video infrastructures. Features of DistribuCare include: High definition Polycom video teleconferencing endpoints, including secure and portable practitioner carts that place diagnostic equipment at the patient s bedside a powerful benefit for rural health clinics, nursing homes, and in at- home patient care. Load balancing by NuPhysicia. DistribuCare includes a sophisticated workflow management component that allows you to efficiently determine the availability of team members, and then connect them with patients in need. This system serves as the equivalent of an air traffic control platform, reducing idle and response times, and enabling the ability to better distribute a workforce and to care for a greater range and number of patients.
Managed services and systems integration by Carousel Industries. Supporting over 20,000 customer sites across the nation including organizations such as Quest Diagnostics, Connecticut Children s Medical Center and BlueCross BlueShield Carousel Industries has extensive experience in designing, building and maintaining the integrated technology infrastructures that health care providers depend on. With our new DistribuCare platform, we at Carousel Industries are able to provide a new level of service using the latest available UC technologies, delivering leadership in developing the next generation of large scale health care answers.