Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s Jefferson Health will soon explore whether a digital patient monitoring platform could help its patients during postoperative recovery, according to an announcement released this morning.
The upcoming pilot will use MegesHealth’s iPostOp, which consists of a mobile app and web application that aims to engage patients in their recovery through the month after surgery and discharge. Along with alerting clinicians to any complications the patient may be experiencing through secure messaging, the platform helps patients manage and understand their personal recovery care plan.
"iPostOp has been designed to digitally mirror preoperative and postoperative processes which are critical in delivering an optimal surgical patient experience,” Dr. Georges Markarian, founder and chief medical officer of MegesHealth, said in a statement. “It provides a unique engagement platform that enables medical care teams to monitor the recovery of surgical patients and manage complications in a more proactive approach than ever before. Our aim is to streamline and optimize post-surgical follow-up for both patients and surgeons in an effort to optimize patients' recovery and reduce costly readmissions that impact both patients and healthcare systems.”
According to the announcement, this pilot will act as a field test before wider deployment across the 14-hospital system.
WHY IT MATTERS
A number of complications can arise in the days following a major procedure, and keeping patients under close observation in the hospital is both expensive and inconvenient for the patient. Monitoring and communication platforms like iPostOp can mitigate these hurdles while allowing care teams to stay in contact with the patient.
"Being able to send the right information at the right time is critical in enhancing care levels and recovery in all medical conditions, especially following surgeries regardless of their severity,” Dr. Edmund Pribitkin, chief medical officer of Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals (TJUH), said in a statement. “At TJUH, we are focused on improving the patient experience especially when challenges are identified. By leveraging, the 'right-time' preoperative and postoperative capabilities of iPostOp, we will be able to better engage our surgical patients from the time their surgery is scheduled until they are cleared by their surgeon during their last post-surgical visit.”
WHAT'S THE TREND
Hospital at home technologies are receiving praise from industry leaders, so it’s little surprise that a number of health systems are rolling out remote monitoring tech among their patients. Just within the past few months, Edinburgh-based Current (formerly snap40) signed a deal with an NHS trust to deploy its post-discharge monitoring technology, while Royal Philips struck a deal with NewYrok-Presbyterian Hospital to supply Philips’ eCareCoordinator platform to more centers.
