Geisinger Health Plan, AMC Health Find Success With Remote Patient Monitoring

Geisinger Health Plan (GHP), using interactive voice response (IVR) and other innovative telemonitoring technology and solutions provided by AMC Health, has demonstrated a 44% reduction in 30-day readmissions compared with a control group and increased case manager efficiency in monitoring patients transitioning from hospital to home.

The Geisinger Monitoring Program (GMP) IVR protocol is a posthospital discharge telemonitoring solution introduced as an adjunct to existing case management in a managed care population and designed to reduce hospital readmissions. In this large scale, two-year telehealth program, GHP compared 30-day readmission rates for members who did and did not use the GMP home telemonitoring program to evaluate whether a comprehensive case management model with AMC Health’s telemonitoring solutions such as IVR reduced 30-day readmission rates. This program produced a statistically significant result, reducing all-cause 30-day readmission rates by 44% compared with a control group that had case management but no IVR protocol.

With telehealth tools threaded into their daily workflows, case managers track patient clinical progress in real time without the delays inherent in programs dependent on patient-initiated contact and self-reported information. These technologies increase the opportunities for proactive intervention using biometric and symptom information captured in the patient’s home. Most important, armed with objective, reliable patient data and 24/7 Internet-enabled visibility to the patient record, the case managers view telehealth as a beneficial enhancement to proven case management best practices and not an added task to an already demanding process.

For more information, visit www.thehealthplan.com or www.amchealth.com.