Role of Telehealth & Remote Monitoring for Chronic Conditions

Role of Telehealth & Remote Monitoring for Chronic Conditions

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Erin Cahill: Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a home care Podcast. I’m Erin Cahill, an account executive at Caresmartz. In the homecare landscape, telehealth and remote monitoring stand as pillars of innovation, particularly in managing chronic conditions. These digital solutions have reshaped, how patients interact with home care, providers breaking down geographical barriers and offering a lifeline to those grappling with chronic illnesses

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Erin Cahill: by leveraging telehealth platforms, elderly individuals can access timely consultations and expert guidance from the comfort of their homes, eliminating the need for frequent and often arduous in person, visits

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Erin Cahill: remote monitoring devices, further enhance this virtual care. Experience allows for the continuous tracking of vital signs, medication, adherence, and symptom progression. In real time this proactive monitoring not only enables early intervention, but also empowers patients to take charge of their health by providing valuable insights into their conditions. Trajectory.

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Erin Cahill: besides telehealth and remote monitoring foster a collaborative approach to care, facilitating seamless communication and coordination among home care professionals across different specialties. This interdisciplinary teamwork ensures that patients receive comprehensive and holistic care tailored to their individual needs.

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Erin Cahill: Today we have Ken Sternfeld on the podcast the founder of the Association of concierge service providers which comprise pharmacists, Pharmd and pharmacy students who work directly with patients via telehealth to deliver value-based services at the point of care. Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air Ken.

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Ken Sternfeld: Well, thank you, Aaron, it’s a pleasure to be here, and I love love, love, love, your assessment and your positioning on telehealth because it is a new standard of care, and I’m happy to be here to share our insights and our vision for that.

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Erin Cahill: We’re so happy to have you.

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Erin Cahill: I’ll go jump right into the first question that we have for you. How do you believe telehealth and remote monitoring can address the unique challenges faced by individuals with chronic conditions, particularly in terms of improving access to care, enhancing disease management, and ultimately promoting a better quality of life.

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Ken Sternfeld: Well, basically the point of care now is more at home than any time in our lives. As healthcare providers. Covid has changed the world, and 4 years ago in March, telehealth was the only way that healthcare professionals could continue to care for their patients. The people who needed that outreach who needed the care. Well, telehealth is like toothpaste that can’t go back into today about 32%

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Ken Sternfeld: of the encounters that are done by professional providers and their patients is with telehealth. Patients love it as far as chronic conditions are concerned, Aaron, we didn’t do a good job prior to Covid. We don’t do a good job.

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Ken Sternfeld: Permanent period with diseases like diabetes, hypertension, chronic illnesses. Those people need the care now more than ever to survive covid.

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Ken Sternfeld: We must be proactive. We must be preventative. We must arrest the growth of chronic conditions, otherwise those individuals will end up back in the hospitals to create another overwhelming healthcare continuum collapse. We must put our stake in the ground and say, telehealth is here to stay, and we must embrace it.

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Erin Cahill: Absolutely, and in your opinion, what specific chronic conditions stand to benefit the most from telehealth and remote monitoring? And why.

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Ken Sternfeld: Well, the easy question is all. But that’s not really where we, as Kirsten concierge in our association, concierge service providers, positions it

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Ken Sternfeld: sadly. I lost my brother to diabetes 30 years ago, and I researched the fact that about 30 years ago, in Asheville, North Carolina, a group of pharmacists

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Ken Sternfeld: created a new standard of care, the gold standard for patients struggling with diabetes. So we have put our stake in the ground to recreate the Asheville project.

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Ken Sternfeld: and we call it the Diabetes Project, because telehealth has allowed us to go from Asheville to Zanesville to Main Street, U.S.A. For patients who struggle with that horrific disease, diabetes, diabetes sadly. You don’t always die from diabetes, but the comorbidities. It’s the number one cause of heart stroke, heart disease, which is the number one killer.

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Ken Sternfeld: So number one cause of blindness. So number one cause of kidney problems. It’s the number one cause of a horrific life. But it can be self managed, and it can be treated so we are actively

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Ken Sternfeld: promoting the advancements in self management, education, empowering patients with telehealth to lead a better quality of life as they struggle with diabetes.

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Erin Cahill: And what are some key challenges home care providers face when implementing telehealth and remote monitoring for chronic conditions? And how can these obstacles be overcome?

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Ken Sternfeld: It’s time

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Ken Sternfeld: every healthcare provider has a desire, and his or her clinical passion there. Why, they became a healthcare provider is to help patients.

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Ken Sternfeld: But the healthcare system doesn’t give us the time. It’s numbers driven. It’s metric driven.

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Ken Sternfeld: and it becomes a tsunami of just tasks as opposed to looking at the patient and saying, I need to be there with you, not just for 8 min, which is the average of what a healthcare provider spends with a patient in an office. But what happens when that patient is home? That’s when there is a challenge in between visits. That’s why chronic care management was introduced by Medicare in 2015, as a way to bridge the gap

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Ken Sternfeld: between appointments. Things happen in life between appointments. So it’s time, Aaron, and we have created a continual, a platform, the ability to spend the time and make the time. We don’t fill any prescriptions as pharmacists. We’ll let Cbs. Walgreens, the corner drugstore and Jeff Bezos one day from the moon. On the whole, food dispensing.

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Ken Sternfeld: We need to marry medication to education, support, to inspire those individuals, to make lifestyle modifications, diet, exercise, mindfulness, and sleep. That’s what we deliver via telehealth here at Carson. Concierge.

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Erin Cahill: Absolutely. And could you discuss any innovative strategies or best practices you’ve observed in utilizing telehealth and remote monitoring to improve patient outcomes in chronic disease management?

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Ken Sternfeld: Well, yes, our secret sauce is to utilize students of pharmacy from universities all across the nation who want to do more than your part the expression flip Burgers at cps health

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Ken Sternfeld: like I did for 10 years. We are mobilizing, leveraging them, educating, empowering, inspiring them, and then hiring them to be a nationwide group of diabet, remote care providers because we want them to be practicing at the height of their professional skill set. I don’t believe anyone

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Ken Sternfeld: in our profession. A pharmacy embraces students of pharmacy like we do. They are the future. Today. We need them to enter our profession with a spirit and a passion for patient care, and we encourage them.

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Ken Sternfeld: and we mentor them, and we guide them to be successful. Care providers. That’s the innovation of people. It’s not AI. You know all of the technologies only work when people who care about the patient utilize those technologies.

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Erin Cahill: And my last question for you, Ken, looking forward, what developments or advancements do you anticipate in telehealth and remote monitoring technology? And how might they impact the future of chronic condition, care.

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Ken Sternfeld: Well. The beauty is Medicare. The granddaddy of them all recognizes the need. They can’t handle these chronic patients. The need to empower healthcare providers to do more remote monitoring. It started in 2015 with one single billing code, the Cpt. 9, 9, 4, 9 O.

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Ken Sternfeld: For Ccm. And it evolved to Rpm. And they increased it for remote physiological monitoring to get the statistics, the data for weight blood pressure, you know. Heart, you know, blood glucose. Now they’ve expanded it to remote patients or remote pain or pain management. So Medicare, thank you, is giving providers an opportunity.

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Ken Sternfeld: But guess what, Aaron, if they don’t take the time to make the time. Their patients will sadly not have the results and the outcomes that they deserve

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Ken Sternfeld: chronic care. Management and remote, patient monitoring are here. Who’s embracing it? We are a hundred percent at counseling concierge.

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Erin Cahill: Thank you, Ken. So much for sharing these great insights. I’m sure the audience got deep insights into how homecare has been revolutionized by telehealth and remote monitoring specifically in reducing the symptoms of chronic conditions. And to you, my wonderful audience, thank you for tuning in until the next episode. This is Erin Cahill, Signing off.