Becker's Hospital Review

18 EXECUTIVE BRIEFING EXECUTIVE BRIEFING 1 D igital transformation is rapidly gaining traction throughout the healthcare industry. While historically, the industry has lagged behind in embracing new technologies — and has continued to perform many administrative tasks manually — it faces an urgent imperative to change how care is delivered. Digital tools hold great potential to help address challenges like workforce shortages, clinician burnout, rising patient acuity and monitoring patients at home. Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with Frank Chan, President of the Patient Monitoring operating unit at Medtronic, to learn more about how innovative technologies such as remote patient monitoring solutions can redefine how care is delivered. Technology helps reduce administrative burden and enhance the patient experience Despite the buzz around the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare, many providers still find themselves burdened with manual administrative tasks. This reduces efficiency and contributes to provider's burnout. At the same time, hospitals and health systems nationwide continue to deal with staffing shortages and increasing labor costs 1,2 . In many cases, organizations have lost more staff than they've been able to recruit and hire. As a result, health systems are being forced to meet higher levels of demand for important healthcare services with fewer people and less capital. With high levels of clinician burnout and an increased number of clinicians leaving the workforce 3 , the criticality of managing clinician workloads has never been greater. One important solution is connectivity tools that automate tasks. When technology solutions are integrated seamlessly into hospital workflows, clinicians can focus on what matters most, which is taking care of the patient. "Connecting medical devices to the EMR eliminates the need for clinicians to manually chart data, saving time," Chan said. "These types of workforce enablement solutions can dramatically improve efficiency. Clinicians spend less time on administrative work and more time with patients. That improves caregiver satisfaction and patient experience." Remote patient monitoring improves patient safety 4 and reduce costly events 5-8 Rising patient acuity is also a challenge for many healthcare organizations 9 . Patients are sicker in general 9 , and lower-acuity areas of the hospital like the general care floor are often serving sicker patients 10 . At organizations with capacity constraints, patients are more likely to be discharged home for their recovery. " Remote monitoring technologies that continuously monitor patients' data inside the hospital and at home can help detect patient decline sooner, especially among individuals with multiple comorbidities who are at higher risk of deterioration and readmission. " Frank Chan, President of the Patient Monitoring Operating Unit at Medtronic When patients transfer from high-acuity areas, like the ICU, to lower-acuity areas or are discharged, they typically go from receiving intense, frequent monitoring to lower levels of less frequent monitoring — or no monitoring at all. "We call this situation the 'monitoring cliff,'" Chan said. "In this scenario, patient deterioration can go undetected. Remote monitoring technologies that continuously monitor patients' data inside the hospital and at home can help by detecting patient decline sooner, especially among individuals with multiple comorbidities who are at higher risk of deterioration and readmission." In response to such capacity and patient safety issues, digital innovations in patient monitoring are being leveraged to help free up healthcare providers to focus on what they do best: providing personalized care. Also, by applying AI to patients' vital signs and physiological data, technology-based remote monitoring solutions can predict when individuals might start to decline. Based on this information, clinicians can initiate early interventions, which improve patient safety and outcomes 4,8 . These interventions may also reduce patients' unplanned returns to the ICU 8,11,12 , as well as readmissions after discharge 8,13 . The result is lower healthcare costs and the benefit can be significant, since the average hospital readmission in the U.S. costs $15,000 14 . Wearables offer insight into patient vital signs from hospital to home Nashville, Tenn.-based Ardent Health Services operates 30 hospitals and more than 200 sites of care nationwide. In Oklahoma and Texas, the organization has adopted a multi- parameter wearable technology called the BioButton®. The BioButton® device, a technology from BioIntelliSense TM and a key part of Medtronic TM 's HealthCast TM portfolio, is a patch that patients wear on their chest, measuring about 1.5 by 1.5 inches. This wearable has connectivity, enabling continuous measurement of key vital signs. How will we solve healthcare's most pressing challenges? Innovative technologies provide solutions.

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