About This Blog

 

Sherri Dorfman, CEO, Stepping Stone Partners, Health Technology Innovation & Patient Experience Strategist

My blog is designed to spotlight healthcare organizations with innovative uses of technology & data to drive Care Coordination, Collaboration, Patient Engagement & Experience.

These patient centric approaches may influence your product & service roadmap, experiences, partnerships and marketing strategies.

MY EXPERTISE:

While consulting, I leverage my extensive healthcare landscape knowledge (acute, ambulatory, virtual, home), patient data expertise and patient experience skills to help companies make the right strategic business, product and marketing decisions. Services include:

1. Strategic Business Planning: Conducts market assessment to guide business, product and marketing strategies. Identifies and evaluates digital health solutions across categories to drive mergers, acquisitions and partnerships.  Defines and validates new business models, data-driven solutions and services. 

2. Patient Experience Strategy: Evaluates current patient experience through best practices framework. Plans, conducts and analyzes stakeholder research and devises journey maps highlighting experience enhancement opportunities, encompassing people, process and technology. 

3. Product & Marketing Strategy:  Co-creates with cohorts (e.g. patient, caregiver and care team) on AI driven health tech solutions. Develops differentiated value proposition story with outside- in view (VOC insights), for marketing, sales and investors.

Find out how I can help you. Email me at SDorfman@Stepping-Stone.net to set up an exploratory discussion.

Learn more about Me 

Powered by Squarespace
Search
Recent Posts
Tags

Entries in TeleMedicine (4)

St Lukes Health Expands Patient Access through Integrated Virtual & Hybrid Care Model

 

During the recent Home & Hybrid Care Virtual Summit 2024, St Lukes Health shared how they have expanded virtual access to support patient care journeys over the past three plus years. It is refreshing to see how St Lukes views virtual as a big front door to their care network, how they have personalized the entrance and experience across more than a half dozen patient programs and how they have invested in an integrated data platform and tools for better care experiences.

Like other health systems, Idaho- based St Lukes Health is addressing today’s healthcare headwinds including staffing challenges, provider burnout, the consumers increased expectations for their healthcare experience, all within the regulatory and reimbursement landscape.

In September 2021, St Lukes Health launched a telehealth program to patients with one of seven low acuity conditions.  Since then, their virtual program has expanded to provide patients with immediate care access until they can schedule and see their providers, which may take up to a few months.

“Our team value is that we (virtual care) will be the quickest access to a provider”, explains Abby Losinski, MHA, Director of Telehealth at St Lukes. Abby’s group is part of the Consumer access and experience team.

St Luke Virtual & Hybrid Model

Since late 2021, St Lukes has developed needed processes and infrastructure to successfully expand their virtual program with a centralized virtual support team, virtual command center platform to address incoming patient demand and virtual care patient data integration to support care collaboration and a superior patient experience.

While many health systems launch separate virtual programs to support urgent care, mental health,  and chronic conditions, St Lukes centralized team supports many patient populations with virtual care access. They view this virtual interaction as an opportunity to begin a patient relationship.

Several patients targeted by St Lukes for their virtual care program:

  • New Patients (December 2021) St Lukes promoted virtual services to welcome patients without a doctor but with an immediate need. During the virtual visit, patients can refill a prescription, get scheduling help and access care support until their appointment. Patients needing a higher level of care are quickly connected with a clinician. 
  • Urgent Care (May 2022) Patients at St Lukes’ Urgent Care Centers with high wait times are offered a virtual appointment when they meet certain criteria. Patients use their mobile phones for the visit and are urged to stay nearby if point of care testing is required. This gives patients a chance to be seen when there are no available rooms. 
  • Service Line Extension (January 2023) “We are an extension of any department where patients need same day access” (e.g.  primary care, urology, oncology, pediatrics) explains Losinski. “We work with the Medical Directors to build clinical guidelines so that patients are treated the same way whether they are coming in to see a specialist or meeting with our virtual clinician”.  Losinski is proud that St Lukes “can offer multi-specialty care from one centralized team”. 
  • Maternity/New Pregnancy (April 2023) After learning about their pregnancy, patients often have questions and concerns. Instead of waiting for their first appointment which may take 8-10 weeks, patients can meet with a clinician virtually and set up notifications in MyChart to immediately receive information about their maternity care and growing baby. During the virtual visit, patients can get scheduling help and care can be escalated if required. 
  • Home & Community Access (Sept – December 2023) St Lukes has set up “virtual hubs” enabling patients to connect virtually using digital health tools from a partnership with TytoCare. “We wanted to expand what we can treat virtually because we have new tools. If we can’t see into the ear, we can’t treat it” and the revenue is lost, Losinski explains. St Lukes now offers TytoCare Home devices (e.g. otoscope, stethoscope, throat camera, skin camera) to patients at home and TytoCare Clinic to patients at schools, libraries and workplaces, to capture data for the virtual care team decision support.

St Lukes Virtual Care Access Experience Success 

Their virtual program success is achieved through continuous focus on the patient experience. St Lukes has designed their virtual experience from the outside- in and offers patients the bridge into their health system care network.

Here are several success elements that I have noticed to deliver care continuity:

Designed Patient Experience to fit care scenario. Newly pregnant patients are set on the Maternity path, supported by the virtual team with education, testing and virtual visits until their OB appointment. Service Line Extension patients such as oncology may have access to digital tools for remote monitoring with condition education and support until their specialty appointment.

Partnered for Patient Care Coordination. St Lukes’ Consumer access & experience team has built partnerships with different service lines and settings across their network. Patients accessing virtual care at St Lukes needing more care are escalated to these clinical partners within the St Lukes network. St Lukes ensures patient care quality is maintained by using the same clinical guidelines for virtual and in- person care.

Built Integrated Patient Data & Tech Infrastructure. “St Lukes has decided that virtual care can not be this thing that lives outside of the health system”, Losinski emphasizes. St Lukes has invested to integrate and augment patient data (TytoCare devices) enabling clinicians to access information from all clinical interactions and from patients from beyond the walls to deliver better patient care and experiences.

St Lukes Virtual Care Feedback

Through marketing research, St Lukes has learned: 

Consumers: The “brand” offering virtual care services really matters. Consumers like that the doctors conducting the virtual visits work for St Lukes and live in the community and appreciate that their PCP can view their virtual visit notes.  

Patients: After participating in St Lukes’ virtual services, patients rated the experience an equivalent of 4.9 stars (out of 5). “Thank you for being there when no one else was” shares a patient.

Providers: Clinicians delivering virtual services have a strong provider experience; “appreciate the increased location and schedule flexibility”, being in the moment for patients” and “getting to work from home”.

St Lukes Virtual Care Direction

Earlier this year, St Lukes launched eVisits, an asynchronous virtual care option. For $29/visit, patients can message a clinician about one of seven symptoms. eVisits are viewed as a virtual care “entry point which affordable and convenient for patients”.

St Lukes will continue expand virtual care access for their patients. “Currently, we are 8am-8pm but we are looking to extend our hours to 24x7” Losinski shared.

It is impressive to see how St Lukes brings patients into their care system through a larger virtual care front door, leverages care partnerships and protocols for consistent patient care quality and empowers care collaboration with integrated data and tools. St Lukes’ virtual care investments and vision enable them to effectively address staffing and consumer expectation challenges while delivering a superior patient and provider care experience.

Ochsner Health System’s Digital Medicine Program Success

Digital Medicine is a nationally recognized, clinically proven program revolutionizing how we treat chronic conditions combining digital tools and engagement with a dedicated care team.

Ochsner O Bar Supports Patient's Digital Health needsIn 2015, Ochsner Health launched its first Digital Medicine Program for Hypertension. Since publishing success outcome measures in The American Journal of Medicine, Ochsner’s Chief Clinical Transformation Officer Dr. Richard Milani, and his team have built on the framework to support patients with chronic conditions (e.g., Diabetes, COPD) and Maternal care. Over 30,000 patients have participated in an Ochsner Digital Medicine Program.

With the cost of chronic care, including indirect costs (productivity loss) reaching $3.7 trillion a year, Ochsner is focused on better managing chronic care through three key levers: medication management, behavioral change, and frequent data collection from home.

Milani believes that a successful Digital Medicine Program must:

  • use the latest guidelines for medication management, important because ideal medications are always changing, and a certain medication may be more effective for one patient (profile) than another.
  • be designed with behavioral science to impact lifestyle change, which includes everything from delivering the right type and timing for nudges to aligning patient needs with right level of high touch care support.
  • leverage data captured and presented within a reasonable time so that clinicians can respond before the patient’s health becomes a problem.

Dedicated Team, Centralized Monitoring

Ochsner’s Digital Medicine programs are supported by a dedicated team of over 60 professionals, including clinicians, coaches, pharmacists, physical therapists, behavioral scientists, IT developers, technology engineers, user experience, content specialists, data scientists and advanced analytics.

Team members help patients throughout their program journey, with onboarding, educating and ongoing care support.  An important benefit of having one Digital Medicine team is that the program can be personalized to the patient’s specific needs (e.g., required monitoring devices) and supported by the same clinician and coach.

EMR Foundation  

“The technology foundation of our Digital Medicine Programs is the EMR Epic,” explains Milani.  “Our patients are given clinically validated devices approved for the program, with device data flowing into the EMR.”

Ochsner has evaluated and selected a set of devices for this program for each condition, which patients are required to use to connect into the Program. Ochsner distributes the devices and is the point of contact for any technical issues.

Patients access their Digital Medicine Program through the Epic portal My Chart (via website and patient mobile app), where they can view trends on device measures, access educational information, complete assessments, and exchange messages with the Digital Medicine Care team.

“For our clinicians, we have designed dashboards which help triage and prioritize patients based on incoming patient health data including Social Determinants of Health,” says Milani “We have set up alerts for our program care team based on selected physiological and inputted measures.  Other providers of the patient’s care can access information in Epic, including a Monthly Report.

Patient Digital Medicine Program Experience

Ochsner Digital Medicine Patient After a referral from his physician, patient Peter (not his real name) is invited through Epic to participate in Ochsner’s Hypertension Program. Participating in the program means that Peter can reduce time off from work and save time driving time for some appointments.

Peter has the option of having the device(s) and program setup information mailed to him, or if nearby, Peter can stop by Ochsner’s O Bar – a physical location that allows patients to test drive more than 100 Ochsner-approved health apps and purchase devices. There’s a technology specialist behind the counter to answer questions and give app demonstrations. (Think genius bar to support patient health technology).  

Once Peter sets up his blood pressure monitor, his measures are sent to his care team. If any measures are out of range, his care team will reach out to discuss any possible changes needed. Peter’s coach sets up personalized messages regarding lifestyle changes needed and reminders to keep him on track with taking his medication and taking his readings. Peter can communicate with his coach via SMS texting, My Chart messages or via phone.  

“We are seeing that patients prefer to communicate asynchronously with their clinicians and coaches, so we are giving them the tools to do so,” says Milani.

Digital Medicine Program Success

“We evaluate success based on a few key measures,” says Milani. “We look at outcomes and are seeing a consistent 2-3 times improvement in control rates with our program. We also look at Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and we are getting very high patient satisfaction scores of 87-90.”

Ochsner recently conducted a pilot program (beginning in June 2020 and ongoing) to investigate how digital medicine with remote patient management can improve outcomes for Medicaid patients battling chronic diseases like Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes. The results were statistically and clinically significant. Enrollment in Ochsner Digital Medicine brought nearly half of all out-of-control Hypertension patients under control at only 90 days, which was 23% more likely than usual care. Control rates continued to improve as patients remained in the program during its first 18 months. More impressively, 59% of people with poorly-controlled diabetes achieved control over their condition as part of the digital program – a rate twice as high as usual care.

Most patients achieved control of their hypertension and diabetes within 90 days of beginning the program, even those who had poor control prior to enrollment.

In addition to improving health outcomes, participation in the digital medicine program resulted in high patient satisfaction, with a net promoter score greater than 91 for Medicaid participants. This is consistent with the high patient satisfaction with digital chronic disease management programs at Ochsner among non-Medicaid patients.

“We're offering patients compassionate human care combined with the power of technology, and we’ll continue to expand these programs to help more patient populations”, Milani concludes.

Success in their words

Patients:

“My care team has been really helpful. They’ve explained things to me… offered me suggestions. I really like the fact of daily accountability. I’ve lost about 103 pounds. I feel better. I have energy that I didn’t have a year ago.”

“I know I’m sleeping better–my hair, my skin, my vision–just different things that you start to notice that we take for granted that are all tied into our blood pressure and blood sugar. I’m a living testimony that it (the program) works! I know for a fact Ochsner Digital Medicine has saved my life.”

“I feel like this is more normal. Someone’s got my back and… I will be able to use [the program] for the rest of my life.”

“The Ochsner Digital Medicine Care Team helped me by guiding me in every way possible – giving me tips on my diet and adjusting my medication on the fly. They are a good support team.”

Staff:

“I love the Ochsner Digital Medicine program. As a physician, I love having the Digital Medicine team helping me because it’s like having other coaches on the team.  Dr. Victoria Smith

Ochsner’s Digital Medicine Program is available to employees across their health system. 

“The Ochsner Digital Medicine program is one of the most important components of healthcare for our (employees). If I can offer better benefits and possibly reduce healthcare costs, why wouldn’t I? We have had employees sign up for the hypertension and Type 2 diabetes programs and have seen many positive results in a short period of time. The program lets your employees know how much they mean to you by investing in them”, Chief of Administration, Chris Kaufmann

Ochsner Health System’s O Bar & Digital Medicine Program Success & Expansion

Ochsner Mobile O BarOver five years ago, Ochsner Health launched their O Bar (Apple genius-like concept) to support patients getting started with digital health tools. Today, Ochsner has nine physical O Bars located in the bottom floor of their health centers and one mobile O Bar.

Although any Ochsner patient can visit the O Bar to begin using a curated set of digital health apps and devices, patients who are invited to join a digital medicine program can go to the O Bar to get set up with selected digital tools to manage and monitor their health journey.  Digital medicine program participants have the option to have their digital tools sent via the mail, without going to the O Bar and can call their program tech support for any assistance. Pre-Covid, about 5-10% of patients chose to receive their digital health tools by mail. During the pandemic, it is mostly all mail.

Ochsner Hypertension Digital Medicine ProgramTo date, Ochsner Health is offering digital management initiatives for hypertension, diabetes, pregnancy and the latest COPD program. Patients do not need to have access to WIFI to participate, just a smartphone or tablet. Less than 5% of patients participating in the digital medicine program use the tablet and instead have their apps downloaded to their smart phone. 

“Our digital medicine programs are realizing 2-3x better outcomes rates than the standard of care”, explains Dr. Richard Milani, Chief clinical transformation officer and innovationOchsner Medical Director, Ochsner Health. “In order to understand how these programs were designed, it is important to take a step back and think about how we need to help patients manage their chronic condition(s). First, we need more frequent data to know at any point in time if their chronic disease is under control. Second we must make sure individuals are prescribed guideline-directed pharmacotherapy.  With the number of new medications coming onto the market and medical research about the profile of patients experiencing the best outcomes, we must be sure patients are having the best chance to achieve an optimal outcome. Finally, we need engage our patients on the “right behaviors” (e.g. nutrition, fitness, stress reduction).”

"We set up our digital medicine programs to be supported by a dedicated team who interacts with and manages the patient’s condition(s)”, shares Dr. Milani. “Their doctor invites the patient to join the program, but it is a digital medicine team who responds to the incoming data and alerts from the digital health tools.” Ochsner’s digital medicine team consists of a pharmacist/APP to help the patient with the “right guideline-directed medicine” and a health coach to provide guidance on lifestyle decisions using behavioral health science techniques. Patients that are on two of Ochsner’s digital medicine programs engage with the same pharmacist/APP and health coach, creating a holistic approach to patient care.

Patients access all of digital health tools in the digital medicine program area with their patient portal. A patient logs in to access patient education information (videos), communicate with her team by scheduling a phone call or sending asynchronous messages and view monthly reports which shows how she is doing, and progress made over time. The patient can also contact the digital medicine team for technical support for their digital tools, which is rare because these connected devices are easy to use for even less tech savvy patients.

Ochsner Connected Mom Pregnancy Digital Medicine ProgramIn addition to appropriate connected devices given to patients to capture and transmit key measures (e.g. diabetes/wireless glucometer, hypertension/ wireless blood pressure cuff, COPD/wireless inhaler and pregnancy/ wireless blood pressure cuff & wireless scale), patients receive texts to capture changes in condition (e.g. COPD severity level), track self- efficacy measures or to be notified of a health concern (e.g. warning about the poor air quality level). Patients have the option of connecting in and sending more information such as weight measures from their own digital scale or steps from their fitness tracker to share with the digital medicine team.

Program Success Measures & Expansion Plans

Ochsner has enrolled more than 15,000 patients across their digital medicine programs.

Over the past 5 years, Ochsner has received positive feedback from their digital management team (e.g. Pharmacist, Health Coach) and from patients in the program.

 “The role of a clinical pharmacist isn’t always to add more medicine. We work with each person to incorporate lifestyle changes and medications that are right for them. This includes stopping or decreasing medicine doses when lifestyle changes lead to improved health.”  -- Carrie, Clinical Pharmacist

“I work with individuals to make small, achievable goals that will not only improve their health, but ultimately improve the way they feel mentally and physically. This allows the patient to feel confident in themselves to make healthier choices in any situation.” – Christina, Professional Health Coach

“I like that it is private. I don’t have to take a blood pressure reading at a Walgreens or CVS. It’s encouraging to know that the lifestyle choices I’m making as well as my compliance to my drug regiment is having a positive effect.” – Alan, Digital Medicine Hypertension Program 

“For anyone who has doubts about joining the program, I would say step out and take the journey.” – Lance, Digital Medicine Diabetes Program

“You get a lot out of Ochsner Digital Medicine. You get a family who is by your side every step of the way.”  - Gaylan, Digital Medicine Hypertension Program

In addition to patient and staff feedback, Ochsner uses a set of quantitative measures to evaluate success. Dr. Milani is proud to share the Net Promoter Score of patients in the digital medicine program of 87.5, which indicates a high level of recommending the program to others.

Dr. Milani explains, “the key success measure is the reengineering of chronic disease care into a new model of care delivery. Our metrics of success are control measures for the disease (i.e. better blood pressure control, better diabetes control, etc.).”

Ochsner has plans to grow their digital medicine programs in 2021.  “We are expanding the population we currently serve and will be adding more disease categories (like lipid management and others). We look at the prevalence of disease burden and the opportunities for better control when deciding on new digital medicine programs,” Dr Milani concludes. 

Oncology Patients experience a personalized journey with interventions and education for better care

The National Cancer Institute reports 2017 U.S. cancer care expenditures were $147+ billion, with anticipated increases from our aging population. 

According to Deloitte’s report in Evidence Based Oncology ( The American Journal of Managed Care publication), many organizations are exploring ways to control costs and enhance care quality for oncology patients (e.g. Patient Centered Medical Homes, CMS’ Oncology Care Model).

With many different types of cancer and treatment options, each patient embarks on a personal care journey.

Oncology patients often experience a long journey. Although some steps entail engaging with care staff at a hospital or clinic, most of the time patients are challenged with managing their disease on a daily basis away from the health system.

Healthcare organizations need to closely monitor oncology patients to determine when care and support is required. To be proactive and stay aligned with patient needs, health systems must collect patient information (e.g. Patient Reported Outcomes/PROMs, Patient reported experiences/PREMs). This patient information can guide the care team to intervene, reducing hospitalizations and costs.  

Northwestern Medicine’s Oncology Program

“We wanted to take a holistic approach with our oncology patients; mind, body and spirit”, explains Dr. Martha L. Twaddle MD FACP FAAHPM HMDC, Medical Director - Palliative Medicine & Supportive Care, Northwestern Medicine, Lake Forest North Region. “We wanted to help our patients navigate their oncology journey, figure out their new normal and participate in their care”.

“A few years ago, we successfully used a patient engagement care tool with our palliative patients. Our palliative team is embedded within Oncology. Eighteen months ago, we introduced this telehealth type of application to our oncology patients. We felt it would be valuable to extend TapCloud to our general oncology patients because we had seen such a positive response using it for those with high symptom burden and advance disease. We believe many patients and caregivers will benefit from having this tool available to use”.

Patient Experience

How does TapCloud support the oncology patient? What is the patient experience?

Last month, Robert (not his real name), a 77 year old patient was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Dr. Twaddle and her staff worked closely with Robert through the onboarding process to provide an overview, demonstrate how to use TapCloud, help him download the TapCloud app onto his phone and iPad and discuss what symptoms they will manage to personalize the app for his specific condition.

The Nurse Coordinator explained “Robert, with this tool (TapCloud), we can think about you when you are not in front of us, get a sense of how you are doing and that we are on the same page”.  Robert was relieved to get a message from his Nurse Coordinator confirming that she can see Robert listed on the dashboard to keep a close eye on him.

Most of Dr. Twaddle’s seventy active patients using the TapCloud App are in their 60s and 70s, with a few in their 80s and 90s.

Through the TapCloud app Care Plan, patients like Robert are asked a set of questions. How are you feeling today compared with yesterday? Which of these meds are you taking? Which symptoms are you experiencing today? Symptoms that were selected the prior day are displayed bold. Patients can add symptom(s) which typically takes less than a minute to provide this critical information. 

Symptom tracking is made easy by using a word cloud. Each day, the patient sees a personalized word cloud containing symptoms.  This personalized symptom cloud incorporates his condition and medications and his list is continuously enhanced from machine learning. TapCloud’s predictive symptoms cover 100+ conditions and 14,000+ side effects.  The patient simply touches those symptoms he is noticing. Additionally, he views personalized education based on his journey stage (e.g. tips for managing chemo side effects) and what he is experiencing. He can also upload this biometric information (e.g. vitals, etc.).

How has Northwestern Medicine used the TapCloud tool to deliver better care to Oncology Patients?

Dashboard displays demo data only

  • Prioritize Patient Outreach. The TapCloud platform analyzes all the patient clinical and self- reported data in real time.  Using advanced algorithms, patients with a clinical need are identified and alerts are sent to the care team. Patients are prioritized based on alerts, severity and risk. Nurses use the TapCloud Triage Dashboard to efficiently track, monitor and respond to patients requiring an intervention. Nurses can drill down on a specific patient to see how many days since check in, recent events (e.g. vitals, medication usage), pain and anxiety levels. 
  • Intervene on specific symptoms: Instead of “fishing” for information about how a patient is feeling or having the patient end up in the ER, Nurse Terri can call the patient and say “I've noticed that you've had increased pain the past 2 days…”.  TapCloud can also be set up to send alerts for symptoms associated with a patient’s treatment. Patients can send a picture within the TapCloud app with a secure message about their concern.
  • In the Patient’s Words: “We had one patient who didn’t feel pain but entered ‘yuk’. He selected that to communicate in his words what he was feeling. One of the features that I really like is journaling. A patient may share that today he is ‘discouraged by his illness’.  Although he does not expect us to respond, it gives us insight into how he is doing and the support that he may need from us”, shares Dr. Twaddle. 
  • Stay Connected with patients who do not come in regularly: When patients are going through infusion treatment, Dr. Twaddle explained that her team sees them on a frequent basis. “However, when our patients are on oral chemo, we feel that TapCloud is especially valuable to give us a window into their experience. We risk losing them because they cannot tolerate the medications and stop without communicating to us.”
  • Address Patient Needs with Right Resource: When patients are not in the Clinic or Hospital, it is important to understand what they need. “We may see in a patient’s journaling that she is feeling afraid which is not physical but may be best addressed through our psych- social resource. Or a patient may be ‘running out of her medication’ or ‘checking in on an upcoming appointment’, which can be managed by our Nurse Coordinator."

Measuring Success

Dr. Twaddle uses a set of quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate the success for the TapCloud solution for oncology patients including:

1) Patient Engagement. How involved are patients in participating in their care?  How often did they check in with the app?  Which symptoms are most common? What are the new symptoms that have been added by the patient? 

2) Improved symptom management. Was pain successfully controlled (e.g. pain scores, pain direction)?  Were negative symptoms (e.g. fatigue, bloated, shoulder pain) managed in a timely and effective manner?

3) Cost reduction. How much money was saved by avoiding ER through interventions on symptoms? “When one of our cancer patient ends up in the ER, we explain that we may be able to help avoid the admission with a check in on the TapCloud tool. We had one patient with a side effect that we could have spotted and intervened since it was dangerous for her”.

“We have found that TapCloud is helpful both with cancer patients who have declining function (e.g. pancreatic, advanced lung, brain tumor) and with those that may be curable (e.g. head & neck, breast)", shares Dr. Twaddle.

AMITA Health’s Program will leverage TapCloud

AMITA Health, one of Illinois’s largest health systems is in the process of planning their program which will use TapCloud.

“When I first heard about TapCloud, I was on board immediately”, explains Dr. Robert O. Maganini, Breast Cancer Specialist at AMITA Health. “We have a compliance problem with our breast cancer patients. Although the hormone therapy treatment (e.g. Tamoxifen, Class Aromatase inhibitor) is for five years, some patients will stop after two years because of the side effects. Our working theory is if we have insights into where these patients struggle and when, we can do more aggressive interventions instead of waiting for their next appointment”.

“Our plan is to offer TapCloud to all 200 patients who want to use it, from newly diagnosed to those in year two when we experience a drop in treatment adherence”.  After describing his patient population – mostly women 40-75 years old, Dr. Maganini expects a high opt- in rate since it is “ideal for them because it enables faster and more convenient access to their provider”.

Like Dr. Twaddle, Dr. Maganini is planning to use a patient- centric approach when introducing TapCloud, ensuring that patients understand why they are using TapCloud, how to use it, and when to use it. 

Dr. Maganini plans to introduce TapCloud to patients at the time of diagnosis. Nurses (e.g. NPs, Navigators) will get patients set up and show them how to use the digital health application. “Since surgery is typically the first step, we plan to use as a follow up with discharge instructions. For those in going through chemo treatments, we will monitor their symptoms. We want to get our patients accustomed to using TapCloud and then they will be using it for the long run with hormone therapy”.

As part of the planning process, Dr. Maganini is working with his team to define the list of side effects including the words that these patients use to describe them. He is leveraging his own and his nursing staff’s patient experiences to devise the TapCloud  symptom list in “patient speak”. This is helpful to patients who often struggle to describe their symptoms and feelings.

From this program, Dr. Managini expects to learn about the top side effects, interventions and the effectiveness of the interventions. He will be looking at different success factors – “increase in the therapy completion (3, 4, 5 years) and longer term (beyond the 2 years) hopefully a decrease in mortality rate and reoccurrence”.

“With a program showing demonstrative effectiveness, we envision scaling this to the AMITA Health 2.0, 19 hospitals”, concludes Dr. Managini.