Caregivers in home health care settings are stretched thin as the number of clients receiving...
Caregivers in home health care settings are stretched thin as the number of clients receiving in-home care continues to rise. Families and health insurance companies are placing greater importance on home-based care in an effort to keep more individuals out of facility settings. In a November 2020 survey of 76 health plan executives, 97% agreed that more care at home is better for insurers and their members.
As demand continues to rise, home health care agencies are looking for innovative ways to deliver high-quality care. Remote patient monitoring is proving to be the perfect fit for this growing need. RPM provides agencies with the ability to monitor and share vital health statistics and activity reports with family members and medical personnel.
Increase Caregiver Effectiveness
In addition to continuously capturing vital health data and sending immediate fall detection alerts, RPM programs, such as CareMate, support a comprehensive approach by enabling caregivers to make the most of the time spent in a client's home. Before arriving at a client's home, the caregiver knows how activity levels and vital statistics shape up compared to historical data. This information provides insight into the client's sleep patterns and general wellness.
When the caregiver arrives at the home, he or she can spend more time interacting with the client to address the most pressing needs as indicated by CareMate data:
Have my client's activity levels changed?
The client's CareMate report may indicate that the patient's activity levels have decreased over the past 48 hours- indicating possible injury, pain, or illness. Armed with this information, the caregiver knows which questions to ask the client and can quickly determine if the client's medical team or family should be notified.
Is my client feeling well?
The CareMate report might also alert a caregiver to the presence of possible infection by showing an increased body temperature and an elevated heart rate. While the caregiver cannot diagnose or treat such conditions, he or she can alert the family or medical team.
Has my client fallen?
CareMate's fall detection sends immediate notification of a fall to a predetermined set of recipients. Notifications are sent via push message through the mobile application and text message. In addition to falls, CareMate also detects stumbles and near-falls. Armed with this information, caregivers can confirm that the client is taking their medication as directed and is not experiencing dizziness. The caregiver can also check the home for potential fall hazards, such as a blanket on the floor or the up-turned corner of a rug.
Is my client sleeping well?
A good night's sleep is restorative in so many ways. Without a good night's sleep, many older adults struggle to maintain healthy activity levels, engage in social interactions, and remember to take medications as directed. A quick check of the client's CareMate report reveals the client's activity level during the night. The caregiver will easily know if the client was walking around and watching TV during the night or sounds asleep in bed.
Streamline Team Management
The CareMate device even makes it easier to manage your caregiver team. Clients may send mixed messages about the effectiveness of the caregiver's time in their home – indicating that the caregiver arrived late or did not interact with him or her. Since CareMate is always logging the client's activity, you can quickly determine how engaged the client is while the caregiver is in the home. Is heart rate elevated? Has activity increased? These factors speak directly to the engagement of the client during the caregiver's visit.
Reviewing the client's engagement during the visit allows you, as a leader in the agency, to best equip your caregivers through additional training and incentivize positive behavior with reward programs.
Create a New Revenue Stream
Not only does an RPM program, like CareMate, provide substantial benefits to the agency, it also gives loved ones and family members peace of mind. As such, it makes it easy to recommend CareMate to busy families that cannot check in as often as they would like but still wish to remain informed about their loved one's health.
CareMate is a complete patient monitoring program that includes the monitoring device, network gateway, daily trend reporting (delivered to an email inbox), mobile application (for caregivers and family members), and dashboard (for caregivers and agency leaders). Additionally, the CareMate device is rechargeable, eliminating the need to repurchase additional sensors. The cloud-hosted neural network supports the addition of any Bluetooth-enabled health monitoring device - view data from a Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure cuff, body weight scale, and glucose monitor along with CareMate data all in the same dashboard.
A robust RPM program gives caregivers a greater understanding of their client's needs, enabling them to perform better during each visit. It also creates a new service offering for home health care agencies seeking to differentiate from competitors. It supports the delivery of high-quality home health care services to families and allows agencies to confirm the services provided at each visit.
Ready to see how a full-service RPM program can change your home health care agency? Contact CareMate today!
