Trapollo, with the support of m.Care technology, now offers a full-scale solution enabling remote monitoring of patients who are suffering from symptoms of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We are prepared to fast-track and rapidly implement new programs for hospitals and healthcare systems across the United States.
What is the solution?
The m.Care platform is a full-scale patient engagement solution to meet the needs of many patient populations you are trying to monitor remotely. This powerful solution has been in the market for over six years traditionally focused on chronic care, post-operative care and behavioral health to enable remote care outside of the walls of a healthcare facility.
Software Components: The solution comes equipped with mobile and web-based applications for two audiences – patients/members and clinical staff. The mobile applications allow the giving and receiving of care from anywhere that is needed while the web-based applications allow for the same functionality on a desktop experience. The mobile applications run on both iOS (10 or higher) or Android (5 or higher) and can be downloaded from either the App Store or Google Play Store directly on the consumer’s personal devices.
Features: There are numerous out-of-the-box features that enable the remote care of your patient populations including:
Bluetooth enabled: When we exist in a world where connected devices are readily available, this platform has a robust list of accepted devices that can be paired via Bluetooth for automated data entry into the platform. All of this data, whether connected via Bluetooth or manually entered, is then sent directly from the application to the clinical team’s records.
Speech-to-text: For scenarios where connected devices aren’t available or the data must be entered manually, there is a great time-saving solution – speech-to-text. This feature allows you to speak your vitals, exercise, food intake, medication, etc. directly into the device by the click of a button and it will record the data into the system.
Two-way video: Built within the application is the ability to connect with a patient or clinical team member on two-way video. Gone are the days of having to leave your monitoring application to hop on a video consultation. Patients and clinicians can schedule meetings via secure messaging and jump on a virtual visit right within the application.
Vital Monitoring: Patients can monitor their vitals as specified by their clinicians via connected devices or speech-to-text directly in the application. Clinicians will receive alerts based on greatest need to triage and care for their patients.
Surveys: Outside of collecting daily vitals, you can also monitor trends and wellness by asking survey questions each day. The platform allows for survey questions specific to your populations disease state to be triggered each day. As with the vital readings, these survey results will be sent to their patient record and alerting a clinician if there are any red flags.
Patient Education: We all know that an informed patient is crucial to care so a patient education portal is a key component of the platform. We can push hospital branded content or disease specific content directly to your patient through the application.
How can the solution address COVID-19?
In early March, a COVID-19 patient monitoring plan was built in conjunction with a leading medical team and added to the existing application to address the growing pandemic. This new monitoring plan is pre-configured to address those who are affected or showing symptoms of COVID-19 and allow for remote monitoring of those individuals. The COVID-19 solution comes equipped with all of the features of the m.Care technology along with some new features tailored specifically for this pandemic.
These new features include:
Rapid Implementation: The COVID-19 monitoring plan is pre-configured to allow for rapid implementation in 2-3 weeks.
News: Access to reliable information is critical during a crisis. One of the new key features is the ability to push real-time information from the healthcare provider and reliable sources like the CDC directly to patients using the application. With one click, they have access to a wealth of information.
Online Appointment Scheduler: Patient volume can be overwhelming for clinicians especially during this time so to help alleviate that stress, queued online appointment scheduling has been added to the platform. Patients can go on and request an appointment, but they must select a reason for the appointment and include any additional information which will all be routed to the care team. This will help the care team prioritize appointment requests and patients will be kept up to date on where they stand in the appointment queue.
Surveys – Symptoms and Mental Health: Symptom surveys were created to help low-risk individuals track their symptoms and avoid unnecessary trips to the emergency department. In addition to tracking symptoms via survey, the application also has surveys that explore mental health including the GAD-7 survey for anxiety and PHG-9 survey for depression. Survey results are treated just as vital readings as they alert care members if data is not within normal ranges so action can be taken.
GPS Tracking: This new feature enables care teams to see potential COVID-19 hotspots based on their patients’ locations and to monitor those patients’ disease progression status to help support hospital resource planning.
Vital Monitoring Specific to COVID-19: As more and more symptoms have emerged for COVID-19, the care plan was tailored to monitor the needed vitals. Temperature and blood oxygen levels are key readings to track symptom progression. The care plan comes pre-configured with those modules for the patients to enter those readings daily.
How can this help?
As we focus on “flattening the curve” to mitigate virus spreading and pressure on the healthcare systems, we must focus on care delivery that is outside of the hospital. By utilizing connected health solutions, specifically telehealth and remote patient monitoring, we see that hospitals are able to free up beds and allow their clinical teams to focus on the lesser risk patients remotely.
A ‘right now’ use case for connected health is COVID-19 but as we work to extend past this pandemic, connected health solutions can help you prepare for what may lie ahead and also allow you to rethink care delivery for other patient populations that are in your care.
For more information regarding how connected health can help for COVID-19 and beyond, please reach out to us here.
Patient engagement solution apps provided by m.Care, owned and operated by LifeScience Technologies, LLC, and requires iOS11 or Android 5.0 or later.
Meredith Strachan
Meredith leads strategy and execution of Trapollo's comprehensive marketing strategy including events, digital, content, campaigns and social media. She has a passion for bringing awareness to innovative, digital healthcare solutions through marketing programs enabling organizations to fully engage patients and improve patient experiences.