BOSTON (May 25, 2022)—Biofourmis, a Boston-based global leader in virtual care and digital medicine, has announced its engagement with Wise Health System to launch a continuum-wide care-at-home initiative. Wise Health System is a four-hospital, integrated care network in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Wise Health System will launch the effort with a home hospital program leveraging Biofourmis' Hospital@Home end-to-end solution that combines artificial intelligence (AI)-based remote patient monitoring technology and clinical support services.
Wise Health System has nearly 200 beds across its four-hospital campus, with over 200 physicians and more than 2,000 employees. The health system is launching a hospital at home program with Biofourmis as part of its progressive healthcare delivery philosophy, to enable participation in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Acute Hospital Care at Home program, for which it has already earned a waiver. Hospitals participating in the CMS program can "admit" patients with certain conditions to their homes instead of a hospital and receive the same reimbursement as if the patient were located in a medical facility.
"Wise Health System is rapidly building a comprehensive network of specialized services and offerings to meet our region's current and future health care needs, and hospital at home aligns with that mission," said Kimberly Cantrell, Director of Care Management. "Not only does Biofourmis' Hospital@Home solution offer real-world results that support its efficacy, but it is a truly turnkey solution that will enable our care system to reduce costs, improve outcomes and enhance the patient experience."
The Biofourmis Hospital@Home solution enables hospitals and health systems to quickly deploy a home hospital program that delivers inpatient-level care within patients' homes. It includes clinical care services and non-clinical services such as program management, operations, supply chain and revenue cycle management. Biofourmis originally co-developed Biovitals Hospital@Home with Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard teaching hospital, for use in Brigham's Home Hospital Program. Patients participating in the program had 70% lower readmission rates, a 32% increase in physical activity and 38% lower costs than patients admitted to hospital facilities, according to a study of the program published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
For Wise Health System's hospital at home program, select patients who are medically eligible for hospital admission will be asked if they would prefer to be admitted to their home instead. Patients who choose this option will receive a Biofourmis-powered Virtual Bed Kit containing a wearable biosensor that enables continuous monitoring of multiple physiological signals, a blood pressure cuff and a digital tablet pre-loaded with the patient-facing Biovitals Hospital@Home app for communicating by video and text with the care team and viewing a dashboard of their vital signs and other data captured from devices.
Clinicians will visit patients in their homes at least twice daily to conduct in-person examinations, assessments and other testing as needed. Hospital@Home enables clinicians to remotely monitor patients' physiological signs, including any that may require intervention based on a personalized baseline developed through AI and machine learning. The FDA-cleared Biovitals Analytics Engine offers care teams through desktop or mobile devices a real-time look at patients' disease trajectory. The AI-powered insights, which have been demonstrated to improve outcomes in clinical trials, help identify clinical decompensation at an earlier stage to prevent a serious medical adverse event that could result in an emergency department visit and/or transfer to a hospital facility.
Based on Wise Health System's experience with its hospital at home program, additional remote patient management programs for post-acute and chronic care may be added in the future using complementary solutions from Biofourmis' modular Biovitals platform.
"Organizations across the country such as Wise Health System are recognizing that care virtualization and inpatient-level care-at-home are gaining acceptance as preferred options by providers and patients due to improved outcomes," said Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO and founder of Biofourmis. "We are looking forward to working with Wise Health System as they transition to safely and effectively delivering more types of care to patients in their homes that improve experience while reducing costs for the hospital."
Visit biofourmis.com for more information.
