PLANO, Texas (January 29, 2020)—Vivify Health, the developer of a connected care platform for holistic patient care and engagement, announced that TRU Community Care, a Colorado-licensed, Medicare and Medicaid-certified, nonprofit health care organization providing a continuum of care for individuals living with advanced illness and loss, has agreed to implement Vivify’s remote patient monitoring (RPM) and telehealth solutions as the foundational technology of its new TRU Telecare program.
The goal of TRU Telecare is to enable more real-time data exchange between TRU Community Care and the patients and families it serves. The program will enhance TRU Community Care’s ability to proactively manage a patient’s disease progression over time. It will also make it easier for patients and families living with complex and chronic illness to communicate with the organization and take advantage of its clinical expertise and educational materials. This virtual care approach is in keeping with TRU Community Care’s philosophy of enabling patients to remain comfortably in their homes while receiving the care they require.
“Our mission is to affirm life at every step of patients’ and their families’ journey through illness and loss,” said Michael McHale, president and CEO of TRU Community Care. “That mission can be difficult to accomplish when care is provided in the home setting and we want to be available in real-time, 24/7. We wanted to create an ability to monitor vital data about our patients on a daily basis, visualize their disease progression without having to dispatch personnel to their homes each time, and communicate visually as well as verbally on-demand. The Vivify Pathways platform was the only solution we saw that gave us the comprehensive, two-way capabilities we required in a single package. We believe it will help us advance our mission exponentially.”
TRU Community Care entered the test phase for the solution in December 2019 using tablets supplied by Vivify Health. The tablets are used for visual and verbal communication and to provide education to patients and families.
Once the test phase is successfully completed, TRU Community Care plans to expand TRU Telecare to include daily data uploads of vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse rate, weight, and HbA1c. The data will be captured with Bluetooth-connected devices supplied by TRU Community Care through Vivify Health.
Patients or their caregivers can then use supplied tablets or their own mobile devices to upload the data to a call center where it will be monitored on the Vivify Pathways platform. If the platform uncovers potential issues, such as a significant overnight weight gain which could be an indicator of water retention leading to heart issues, the call center will automatically notify a care manager.
The care manager can then immediately contact the patient or caregiver to gain further details about the state of the patient’s health or take other appropriate actions to address the issue before it becomes more serious. This approach can help avoid an unplanned hospital stay minimizing disruption in the life of patients and their families.
“We see remote patient monitoring (RPM) and telehealth not as a replacement for our in-home visits but as an extension of our services,” McHale said. “It allows us to be there when the patient needs us most. Getting ahead of health events through data monitoring and virtual visits gives us the ability to provide better care which we believe will improve the patient experience.”
TRU Community Care began as the first hospice organization in Colorado. It now provides a continuum of care for members of the greater Boulder, Broomfield, Adams, Jefferson, and Weld county communities living with advanced illness and loss. Its programs, which now include TRU PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), hospice home care, inpatient hospice care at Longmont United Hospital, palliative care, grief support services, and community education and outreach, serve approximately 600 patients daily.
“TRU Community Care is bringing real comfort and dignity to patients and families who are facing advanced illnesses,” said Eric Rock, founder and CEO of Vivify Health. “They understand that care is more than data on a chart, although that is an important element. It’s also about being there for the patients and families on a human level. We are proud that the Vivify Pathways platform is giving them the means to humanize the patient experience and help these families through some of the most difficult times they will face.”
Visit vivifyhealth.com for more information.
