New digital tools provide efficiency and better clinical data for nurses while empowering patients with easy access to their health information and their clinicians, says this CNO.
Editor's note: Kathy Driscoll, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, CCM, is the senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Humana.
In recent years, we have witnessed significant advances in technology that have reshaped the health care industry and particularly improved the home health landscape. Innovations such as telehealth services and remote patient monitoring assist health care practitioners in their daily tasks and help extend the reach of care to underserved and hard-to-reach communities.
In a time of persistent workforce shortages, gaps in access to care and increased complexity of care, technology has proven vital to expanding care delivery methods, benefiting patients and providers alike.
Going mobile
For example, CenterWell Home Health’s PRIME wound management program began piloting a new mobile app in 2021 to help its nurses more accurately track a patient’s progress on wound recovery. The app includes software that measures a wound's length, width and depth, improving the consistency and reliability of this task.
As use of the tool became more commonplace, the clinicians began to recognize the need for certain changes and additional features, such as simplifying the user interface and adding a rear-camera “selfie” mode – in cases when photographing a patient’s wound from the front of their tablets was difficult. We shared these recommendations with the company behind the app, who is now working to implement them. This made our clinicians feel heard – and thereby empowered.
One of the significant benefits resulting from these advances is that home health nurses can now spend more time caring for patients rather than being consumed by administrative work. For instance, voice-to-text technology has revolutionized documentation by enabling health care professionals to convert speech instantly into text, speeding up record-keeping and ensuring more accurate patient records.
Clinicians are also leveraging the potential of mobile health applications and remote monitoring devices to help improve quality of care delivery and treatment management. These tools track patient health metrics in real time, enabling health care providers to monitor a patient’s condition continually and respond promptly when problematic changes are detected.
Portable noninvasive monitoring technologies help provide detailed insights into patients’ health without the need for invasive procedures. These technologies are particularly beneficial for patients in rural or underserved areas, helping ensure that geographical location does not compromise quality of care. This helps providers streamline their processes, aiming to limit any lapses in communication from the clinic to the patient’s home that could affect treatment.
Transformation through telehealth
The widespread adoption of telehealth has also dramatically transformed the health care landscape, proving its essential role in care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic when traditional face-to-face interactions were limited. Telehealth platforms can benefit care delivery in the home, making more frequent interactions between provider and patient possible and enabling better management of chronic diseases.
Features such as virtual visits and remote diagnostics enhance care without the need for physical travel. As telehealth technology continues to evolve, its role in supporting patient engagement and optimizing health care resources can significantly improve patients’ access to care.
These digital tools provide efficiency and better clinical data for nurses while empowering patients with easy access to their health information and their clinicians. Stronger patient-provider relationships develop when patients feel in control of their health, which facilitates more personalized care tailored to the individual’s needs.
Good physician-patient communication can ultimately lead to improved patient health due to factors such as increased comprehension, stress reduction and increased compliance. With ongoing innovation and the thoughtful integration of new tools—complemented by nurses' skills and their human touch—we can improve the quality of patient care, creating a more effective, patient-centric health care system.
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Kathy Driscoll, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, CCM, is the SVP and Chief Nursing Officer at Humana.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Clinicians are leveraging the potential of mobile health applications and remote monitoring devices to help improve quality of care delivery and treatment management.
Telehealth platforms can benefit care delivery in the home, making more frequent interactions between provider and patient possible and enabling better management of chronic diseases.