Remote monitoring solutions certainly disrupt traditional healthcare delivery, but as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, they provide an effective replacement for in-person interaction between patients and healthcare providers. As the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt long after its resolution, remote monitoring solutions continue to play a critical role in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery. Surgical Remote Monitoring platforms like SeamlessMD have been proven to reduce hospital LOS, readmissions, ED visits, and costs while also increasing patient satisfaction.
Before launching, a successful Surgical Remote Monitoring program should establish a strong training program prior to the launch of the technology to ensure staff are adequately prepared and are aware of responsibilities. After launching, organizations must do their due diligence to ensure that proper steps are being taken to sustain the program in order to maximize the long-term benefits of the technology.
Frequent data review & team huddles early on
You will be learning a lot during the first few weeks after Go-Live. You may even recognize some workflow issues to troubleshoot early on - that is normal and OK. The important thing is that your team is meeting regularly to collaborate, resolve issues and make improvements.
For the first 2-3 months, it is best for your steering committee or core stakeholder team to meet weekly to review metrics and determine whether your processes such as patient education, enrollment, and dashboard monitoring are working well. A typical agenda includes:
Once the processes are stable, teams can typically move to monthly and then eventually quarterly reviews.
For ongoing and long term success, follow these two key steps:
Outcomes and ROI analysis
Most hospital administrators see value in performing an outcomes or ROI analysis after the first 100 patients complete the Surgical Remote Monitoring program. The typical endpoint for the patient journey in a program is 30 days post-discharge.
While there are different types of analysis that can be done, the easiest and fastest analysis hospitals can do are:
1. Pre vs post-intervention analysis
2. Simultaneous cohort analysis
The data collected from your first 100 patients will help your team understand what’s going well, what can be improved and start to provide evidence to show a ROI for program sustainability and scale.
Leverage aggregate PRO data for quality improvement initiatives
Although your initial reason for implementing a Surgical Remote Monitoring program may have been to immediately reduce the surgical backlog, one of the amazing opportunities to consider is using the aggregate Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) data for quality improvement (QI) and research.
Surgical Remote Monitoring platforms are often collecting large volumes of PRO datasets on protocol compliance, symptoms, pain scores, opioid consumption, anxiety scores, etc.
Insights from this aggregated data can be used to drive QI initiatives, such as understanding post-op opioid consumption at home, and using that to safely reduce opioid prescription practices in the future.
Best practice is to leverage your leverage monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly meetings to review as a team, or simply include a review of the PRO data as part of your regular surgical quality meetings.
Participate in user groups to collaborate, learn & disseminate best practices
Congratulations! By now you should understand the broad strokes of How to Implement Surgical Remote Monitoring.
To continue growing and succeeding, some Surgical Remote Monitoring programs have benefited from “user groups” where hospitals using the same platform meet monthly or quarterly to benchmark data, collaborate and share best practices.
These “multi-center collaboratives” are often set up by surgery type (e.g. SeamlessMD’s Cardiac Collaborative) and/or by geographical location (e.g. SeamlessMD’s Ontario hospital user group).
These multi-site collaboratives allow users to:
Celebrate wins (big and small)
Finally, make sure to celebrate every win and milestone in your initiative.
These little acts compound over time, lead to more staff enthusiasm and drive momentum for more success over time.
Good luck with your Surgical Remote Monitoring journey!
Check out our podcast episode on “How to Implement Surgical Remote Monitoring” where we discuss the topic in-depth (Timestamp: 57:30).
Want a step-by-step plan to help you get started with a Surgical Remote Monitoring program? Download our free whitepaper here for a practical guide on how to get started with a Surgical Remote Monitoring program today.