Integrated monitoring solution for GPs caring for COVID-19 patients at home
LONDON: An integrated telehealth and remote monitoring solution for GPs caring for COVID-19 patients at home has been devised.
Telehealth specialist Coviu has partnered with health monitoring software vendor The Clinician to launch an integrated telehealth and remote patient monitoring solution for general practices for the management of COVID-19 patients in the home.
The solution is similar to a hospital-in-the-home care model and will allow GPs and practice nurses to remotely monitor patients and their symptoms with Bluetooth devices and symptom recording, as well as consult with patients directly through a video call if necessary.
Coviu is used by a substantial number of general practices around the country and provides the technology platform for Healthdirect’s video call service, while The Clinician’s ZEDOC platform allows for the automated collection of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and device data through a patient app that clinicians can monitor on dashboards.
Using the platform, clinicians can enrol their patients in a purpose-built COVID-19 digital solution that collects key vitals such as temperature and blood oxygen saturation levels, as well as subjective patient-reported outcomes like chills, coughing, muscle aches and other symptoms.
It can then alert practitioners when a patient’s vital signs are outside the normal parameters, allowing for early intervention by video call. It is also aimed at reducing the need to make routine video calls – which are time-consuming for busy clinicians – several times a day.
Coviu CEO and co-founder Silvia Pfeiffer said the idea was to make remote monitoring of patients as simple as possible for general practices, which are being encouraged through the federal government’s $180m primary health package to support COVID-19 cases at home.
“What we want to do to help GPs is to make it simpler and as seamless as possible,” Dr Pfeiffer said. “Essentially, the way it would work is for a GP who has already signed up through Coviu or Healthdirect. We would add another element to their interface where they can get the dashboard, which is within The Clinician, to see all of the patients that are being monitored. They don’t need to sign up for another platform.”
The likely workflow would see a COVID-19 patient present to the practice – GPs are being offered a bonus payment to see them face-to-face – who would then instruct patients with mild cases on how to use a pulse oximeter and ask them to install the ZEDOC application.
“The patient goes home with the pulse oximeter and starts monitoring themselves, as well as answering the questions that ZEDOC sends through. ZEDOC sends reminders several times a day,” Dr Pfeiffer said.
“The patient essentially only interacts with ZEDOC and the clinician only interacts with Coviu. If the patient needs to talk to the clinician, ZEDOC will send them a link to a Coviu clinic where they can make a virtual appointment.
“The remote patient monitoring and the video consults become one integrated system.”
Dr Pfeiffer said the platform will even reduce the need to use video calls as these will only be needed if the patient requests it or deteriorates. While the remote monitoring care model in general practice is new, it is probably the practice nurses who will be doing most of the routine monitoring.
This is where Coviu and other telehealth platforms are looking to the federal government to come up with a remuneration model. GPs can claim for telehealth services for COVID patients, but practice nurses can’t.
“Perhaps what it needs is a reimbursement per patient for a practice nurse to do the remote monitoring as there is no reimbursement at this point in time,” Dr Pfeiffer said. “GPs can get reimbursed if they do a video call, but not for remote monitoring, and yet using remote monitoring would reduce the need for video calls to monitor the patient, which are labour-intensive if you are doing it three times a day.”
Dr Pfeiffer said GPs are already using telehealth for remote monitoring, but that often means the patient reading out the measurements of their pulse oximeter during the call or holding it up to their webcam. Integration with a remote monitoring platform like ZEDOC would prove a more streamlined solution.
“Even if it might actually reduce the use of video telehealth, it becomes more efficient for the GPs and for the GP practices, as we’ve also seen in hospitals,” she said. “They’ve done hospital in the home with that kind of approach. We’re just moving this from a hospital environment to the community.
“We wanted to give Coviu customers access to a dashboard that tracks the status of their patients. That’s where The Clinician comes in as they provide such a dashboard for remotely monitoring patients. It gives a powerful command centre to a practice and helps them deal with a lot of cases in a simple, scalable way.”
Dr Pfeiffer said the partnership would target primary health networks (PHNs) with the solution, but individual practices can sign up directly.
