TouchPointCare believes in the efficacy of a “data driven” approach to home health care, where caregivers proactively gather patient data and use that information to make treatment decisions. Monitoring programs for homebound patients enable earlier intervention and reduce emergency visits and hospital admissions.
The Libertyville (Chicago)-based software company also believes that remote patient monitoring devices are beyond the budget of many home health providers. For this reason, TouchPointCare has designed its patient monitoring system around the home telephone, not around specialized devices.
“The issue isn´t how you gather the data, rather, it is that you do indeed gather it,” the TouchPointCare motto goes. The system consists of customized, script-driven telephone calls from non-clinicians to patients. Clinicians are summoned only when a patient’s situation demands it.
- The caller asks a series of questions that have been prepared specifically for each patient, based on age, condition, diagoses and mental acuity.
- The caller can be an employee of the home health care agency or calls can be outsourced to a third party contractor.
- Patient answers are recorded into the TouchPointCare software by the caller.
- Answers that exceed established thresholds trigger alerts for review by staff clinicians.
- Answers are stored in a secure database.
- Authorized agency staff can access the database via the Internet for reporting and analysis.
- The home care agency can create additional, non-medical questions to expand the call for patient satisfaction purposes.
- Calling schedules can be customized for each patient.
Typically, patients have been instructed in the use of blood pressure monitors, weight scales and other measurement and rehab tools and have been asked to have daily vital sign measurements ready prior to the call. Agencies may supply their own equipment or TouchPointCare can provide it.
Magnolia Prime is based in Redwood City, California. Founder and president Karen E. Routt has taken a different approach to turning Plain Old Telephone Sets (POTS) into patient monitoring devices.
Magnolia Prime’s Telebeneficiary™ Service is typically used by family and friends rather than professional caregivers, though healthcare provider organizations are welcome to contact the company about partnering to provide it as a value-added service.
- The Telebeneficiary™ Service begins with a subscriber logging onto a secure online account and scheduling a telephone message to be sent to another person, usually an elderly family member living alone.
- An automated system immediately calls the subscriber and prompts him or her to record a personal message.
- At the designated time, the homebound family member’s telephone rings and a musical tone and automated voice explains that a recorded messsage is about to be played. The name of the intended recipient is spoken and the voice instructs the person who answered to phone to hang up if he or she is not that named person.
- The recorded message plays.
- The automated voice prompts the receiver of the message to record a reply.
- The subscriber receives an automated call that plays the recorded reply.
- Alerts are delivered to specified persons if no one answers a call.
Magnolia Prime is in a pilot phase at this time and has not yet established a price list, according to Karen Routt. A San Francisco “Meals-on-Wheels” program is using the system to see how it works to alert homebound persons that a delivery truck is on the way and an authorized person will soon be knocking at their door. “So far, it has made significant reductions in wasted miles driven,” Routt told HCTR.
Last week, Magnolia Prime announced that it has been invited to join “Astia,” described as the premier global network serving women-led high growth start-ups since 1999. Magnolia Prime was one of 27 start-ups joining the elite community this past Fall. One hundred and seventy-four companies have been invited to become Astia clients since 2003. Invitations are extended only to those companies that pass Astia’s robust two-month screening and qualification process. The invitation enables Magnolia Prime to participate in any program taking place in San Francisco, New York, London or India in 2010.
“We are honored to be accepted into Astia’s global community of entrepreneurs and to take part in such a prestigious program,” said Ms. Routt. “We are confident that Astia will not only provide us with the relationships and connections we need to accelerate our company’s growth, but its team of experts will provide us with the necessary business insight to come out on top as a market leader.”
