Becker's Hospital Review

72 INNOVATION 'Safe, happy and cheap': Inside Mayo Clinic's Hybrid Care Hotel By Naomi Diaz M ayo Clinic's Hybrid Care Hotel in Jacksonville, Fla., challenges the idea that low-risk surgical patients are better off recovering in a conventional hospital setting. e Hybrid Care Hotel is a virtual hybrid care service designed for low-risk surgical patients that utilizes technology and in- person clinician interactions to reenvision patient care. Michael Maniaci, MD, medical director of Mayo Clinic Hospital in Florida, spoke to Becker's about how the hospital's quick thinking during the height of the pandemic brought the Hybrid Care Hotel into being. Question: When did Mayo Clinic initi- ate the idea for its Hybrid Care Hotel? Michael Maniaci, MD: e idea came up in late July 2020 when COVID-19 started to surge in Florida. We had so many out of town patients that needed to be kept at our hospitals overnight, but needed the capacity for sick patients coming in with COVID-19. So, instead of stopping surgeries we decided to come up with another model so our pa- tients could get the care they needed, that's how the Hybrid Care Hotel started. Q: What teams were involved in the creation process? MM: Our hospital practice team worked with our surgical teams to try to combine the technology we were using from our hos- pital-at-home program to the Hybrid Care Hotel. We also began asking advocates, in neurology and neurosurgery, to elect pa- tients that would be right for this kind of care. We wanted to make sure we could prove this system would be safe and pro- vide patients with a good experience. is allowed us to combine all the right people, technology and surgeons for the Hybrid Care Hotel, and five days later, aer our ini- tial discussion with our teams, we ended up piloting the program with our first patient. Q: When designing the program, how did Mayo Clinic ensure its focus was on improving patient experiences and satisfaction? MM: First we wanted to do this voluntarily, we didn't want to force any patients to have to go to a hotel if they didn't want to. Second, we kept communication open with patients. We collected their responses, immediate reactions, answered questions, linked them to their surgeons and collected patient ex- perience data, refining the aspects of the Hybrid Care Hotel to meet their needs. Q: Based on patient feedback you've received, what do patients like about the model? MM: Some of the feedback we've gotten from patients is that they find more comfort in recovering in a hotel room versus a hospital room. ey also loved having family with them. e Hybrid Care Hotel allows patients' families to wait in the hotel while they get their procedure done and visit them aer- wards without having to wait in a crowded waiting room. Patients also said that they really loved the use of the tablet, which allows patients to connect to a bedside nurse virtu- ally. Response time using the tablet was 30 seconds, that's faster than our hospital. Q: Do you think hybrid care models like this will become more popular over the next decade? MM: Yes, and these are my key reasons — safe, happy and cheap. e quality of care provided at the Hybrid Care Hotel has al- ready been proven to be safe. Mayo Clinic is also collecting data on the patient experience and is comparing it to the hospital experi- ence, and some of our findings suggest that patients are having a better experience at the Hybrid Care Hotel. Also, this program saves money, building hospital facilities to house patients can be a $100 million investment, whereas the Hybrid Care Hotel costs thou- sands. is allows hospitals to save money and pass that along to investing in better pa- tient care. Once other hospitals see that this is working, it will quickly gain popularity. n FDA approves 1st smartphone app that can deliver extra doses of insulin By Naomi Diaz T he FDA cleared the first app for iPhone and Android devices capable of giving diabetes patients doses of insulin. Tandem Diabetes Care, an insulin delivery and diabetes technology company, said in a Feb. 16 news release that its app, which pairs with the company's t:slim X2 insulin pump, will allow diabetic users to administer a dose of insulin directly through their smartphone. The application will be used for bolus insulin dosing, which prevents glucose spikes after meals. "This FDA clearance further validates our commitment to innovation and the diabetes community by providing one of the most requested feature en- hancements," John Sheridan, president and CEO of Tandem Diabetes Care, said in the news release. "With the improvements in diabetes management provided by Tandem's Control-IQ technology, giving a meal bolus is now the most common reason a person interacts with their pump, and the ability to do so using a smartphone app offers a convenient and discrete solution." The FDA-cleared feature will be available to U.S. t:slim X2 insulin pump cus- tomers for free through a software update. The company plans to roll out the feature in a series of limited launch groups in spring and an expanded launch in the summer. n

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