Post pandemic health care includes more at home care & leveraging of digital health tools

Written by Dr. Ramin Rafie, M.D., MBA, Advisor, Keva Health 

As the world looks to return to a sense of normalcy post pandemic, many industries have been changed forever, leading to increased leverage of technology to improve inefficiencies and create new sub-industries.  Health care is no exception as many hospitals have learned and are actively working to create hospital at home programs and centers of excellence.  Recently, Mayo & Kaiser together joined forces and raised $100 million to help develop their own hospital at home model of care to help improve some efficiencies.  Medicare’s independence at home program proved that primary care can be provided more cost efficiently in the home and in 2019, Medicare passed a law allowing all Medicare recipients to have a visiting physician in the home, a service that was previously reserved for the sickest of the homebound population.  Many new healthcare companies are taking advantage of this and centering their entire company around providing such care in the home exclusively, as it’s a better utilization of limited resources, cost effective while improving the quality of care for the patient.

Not only is technology facilitating this change by allowing portable EKGs devices to be hooked up to physician’s laptops in the home and portable EKG and U/S machines allowing such studies to be done in the home as well.  Enter AI (Artificial Intelligence) & ML (Machine Learning) which will continue to catalyze this movement by increasing the power of devices in the home.  This is where Remote Patient Monitoring comes in as devices are able to sync to smartphones and seamlessly transmit data in realtime to physicians.  Every specialty that monitors chronic conditions will benefit from this shift.

KevaHealth is able to provide such tools for asthma & COPD patients in the home & elsewhere outside the hospital and doctor’s office.  Their portable spirometry that syncs to a smartphone is providing the tools to monitor disease severity in real time while improving adherence and minimizing exacerbations.  As medicare continues to reimburse for such RPM devices and technology, this will expedite the hospital at home movement.  This technology will continue to lower hospitalizations, reduce exacerbations and usher in the new sub-industry in health care known as Prevention-As-A-Service (PAAS).

About Keva Health

Keva Health’s platform is integrating innovative remote monitoring functionality with evidence-based self-monitoring programs for patients with chronic respiratory diseases to improve outcomes and reduce cost. Please contact us at [email protected] for more info.