The Need for Technology-Enhanced Care Coordination

The cost of health care is steadily rising. Gaps in care for complex chronic conditions, such as heart failure, diabetes and chronic airway diseases like asthma and COPD continue to plague our nation. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the medical care costs of individuals with chronic conditions account for more than 75% of our nation’s $2 trillion medical care costs.

Much of these exorbitant health care costs are avoidable. Yet, current management of these complex chronic conditions suffers from a lack of adequate care coordination, timely symptom recognition and poor patient adherence to medications and treatment plans. This ineffective chronic condition management results in increased hospital and ER admissions and re-admissionsischarge. Recent reports have shown that patients with complex health needs are being discharged from hospitals earlier, in part due to pressures on hospitals to reduce average lengths of stay because of the continued growth of DRG (diagnosis related groups) and capitated reimbursement for inpatient care. Given this motivation for early and possibly premature discharge, it is no surprise that our country’s hospital readmission rates are increasing as well and playing a significant role in the cost increase.

The Opportunity

Studies show the value of integrated health management programs in improving care coordination, quality and outcomes while reducing costs and other expenditures. Recent data goes even further to show the additional value received when organizations integrate remote patient monitoring into health management programs. In June, 2008, the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine published estimates that remote monitoring could cut national costs of heart failure alone nearly in half from $8 billion a year to $4.2 billion.

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The New Paradigm for Chronic Care Management

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Pharos Innovations assists clients in achieving next-generation clinical and financial performance improvement. Tel-Assurance®, our device-free remote patient monitoring platform, improves care coordination and drives dramatic clinical improvement and cost savings by averting unnecessary hospitalizations. This enabling technology allows for proactive remote monitoring and the early identification of clinical deterioration. Pharos substantially expands the reach, efficiency and effectiveness of our clients’ health management programs for complex chronic conditions.

The Pharos model is technology-enhanced care coordination that shifts the paradigm from an episodic, acute care focus to proactive, daily, exception-based and actionable monitoring. There are two major differences between Pharos Innovations and other remote monitoring companies:

Device-free, technology-based, enabling platform

Tel-Assurance is a cost-effective, technology-based platform solution that does not require special equipment. Participants use any available telephone (land line, cell phone or payphone) or internet connection and basic health measurement tools, such as a generic bathroom scale or glucometer, to gather and report basic symptom information. This means that system access remains high, cost remains low and your care managers do not have to deploy or retrieve any equipment, or worry about equipment infection control issues or special equipment to accommodate language, vision or literacy impairment challenges.

A recent article, Medicare, Insurers Reluctant to Pay for Telehealth, reported that while remote patient monitoring can save money (an estimated $4 billion/year in heart failure expenses alone) and lives, the equipment that most remote monitoring companies use is too expensive, at an estimated $150 per month, and hard-to-operate.

The most proven solution available

Our solution is the most proven solution available, demonstrating dramatically better results than traditional disease management has shown. A sample of these third-party, validated results include:

  • Reduced HbA1c levels by 2.5 points within six months in a statewide study of a diabetic population at a large regional healthcare entity
  • Virtually eliminated 30-day readmissions in a heart failure pilot within a statewide Medicaid population
  • Adding Tel-Assurance to existing case management at a renowned cardiology institute reduced the average length of stay and eliminated 30-, 60- and 90-day readmissions
  • Results of a study of 226 heart failure patients in five centers in a rural state showed:
    • Participation was beneficial in improving quality of life (received a patient rating of 4.83 out of 5)
    • 3- to 5-fold increase in workload capacity (from 75 to 375 patients per case manager)

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