Q&A: ComForCare's CEO on Remote Patient Monitoring Use to Ensure Consistent Care

The franchise's partnership with Connected Home Living has been well received by franchisees and clients alike.

The use of remote patient monitoring technology in the post-acute space is expanding from the skilled nursing and home health setting to the home care setting.

ComForCare, a home health provider that also offers caregiving services , initiated their partnership with Connected Home Living, Connected Care, nine months ago, implementing the technology into their in-home care protocol. Connected Home Living is a remote patient monitoring and telehealth services provider.

In addition to monitoring vital signs, the technology will monitor alerts, medication, and the mental and physical state of a client daily.

HealthLeaders spoke with J.J. Sorrenti, CEO of Best Life Brands, the parent company of ComForCare/At Your Side Home Care, on how the partnership came to be and the process of introducing the technology into operations.

The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

HealthLeaders: What was the background going into this partnership?

J.J. Sorrenti: We had been looking at it for a full year prior to rolling it out about nine months ago. We see it as a transformative step forward in our commitment to helping deliver compassionate care to our clients.

Technology, for us, is proactive care and it allows us to bridge the gap during times that we're not in the home and that therefore provides greater stability. It provides greater insights to our caregiver people and as a result helps with improved outcomes.

HL: Who or what entity monitors the data that comes in?

Sorrenti: Connected Home Living is helping us. They're all certified caregivers and they're certified to provide remote patient monitoring assistance on the phone.

We also monitor a change in the activity of a home. If there's no movement by a certain time or in a certain room that might be inconsistent, for example, we have people that are keeping an eye on these things and will then contact the caregiver, the franchisee, and the client's family.

HL: How have franchisees responded to it? Have there been any troubleshooting issues?

Sorrenti: No issues. I think, as they see it, they like the engagement.

We want to be in the home 24/7 if we could find enough caregivers for that or if the family could afford that, because that would provide the best care, but the technology allows us to be there and so it gives us wellness monitoring and fall detection when we can't be in the home all the time. There's daily face-to-face telehealth calls with a real person and there's a comfort in connection that aids well-being to the client. This helps us with frequency and better care.

HL: What technological components are involved? Is there a phone application, a modem?

Sorrenti: It's very simple technology. There are some Bluetooth-enabled devices that can be connected, so there could be a pulse oximeter, a blood pressure monitoring system, and then there are some monitors that go on the walls.

These are not cameras, so we're not actually looking in the home. These are detection devices so they can monitor movement in the room.

One of our primary concerns was how easy it would be to install and how easy it would be for the senior to use it, but we've had no issues with that.

There's a little bit of training that's involved, both for our franchisee and our caregiver and then, of course, for the client, but that's all been dealt with very well and much easier than we thought.

HL: Has it helped alleviate the strain of the caregiver shortage?

Sorrenti: It's helped a lot, but we're very careful to make sure that our franchisees understand that this is no replacement for in-home care with a real live human being.

This is a supplement to make sure that we're always there, with our technology that protects the client, but we don't think this is the replacement for it completely.

We still like to make sure that we have some interactions, so it's a hybrid combination of both, but it does give the family much more comfort. It's hard to know what's going on in the home, but not with this system. We're able to keep the family members comforted, knowing that the information is flowing.

HL: Do you see the potential for other franchises or smaller agencies to use similar innovations?

Sorrenti: It think technology of different scales will be available to the smallest agencies, to the largest chains. More agencies will continue to engage with this as they start to understand how easy it is to implement and it's not scary for the senior to use.