When the pandemic hindered care for their ICU patients living with diabetes, nurses in an Ohio health system took advantage of new technology and a federal waiver to solve the problem.
With COVID-19 reducing contact with patients in the ICU, nurses at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found they couldn't manage daily care for their charges living with diabetes. So, they got creative.
Nurses in the medical ICU (MICU) at the Columbus health system partnered with diabetes nurse practitioners to create a digital health-based process that allows nurses to monitor patients' blood glucose levels and administer insulin from outside the patients' rooms.
In doing so, they took advantage of two fast-growing segments of the healthcare innovation space: a booming industry in digital health tools and devices for chronic care management, and a population on the front lines of healthcare in desperate need of new technologies and workflows to improve patient care.
"Nurses are innately innovative," says Hunter Jefferis, MSN, RN, CCRN-K, MICU nurse manager at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "At the onset of the pandemic, [the] crisis accelerated innovation, driven by a need to protect and support our critical care nursing teams. Through collaboration with our endocrinology team, we seized the opportunity presented by the FDA to develop a hybrid protocol for continuous glucose monitoring for our COVID+ hyperglycemic patients in the ICU setting."
The process recently earned the health system’s University Hospital and nearby Ross Heart Hospital the 2021 Magnet Prize from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). As a result, the nurses are in the midst of a multi-site, retrospective study with other health systems that are using the protocol.
"It is truly a testament to our profession that despite the challenges we all face with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are able to remain resilient and create innovative solutions to enhance the care for our patients," Jacalyn Buck, chief nursing officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, said in a press release announcing the award. "This groundbreaking innovation designed by my team has made a lasting impact on the care for COVID-19 patients with hyperglycemia and will continue to improve care for many more."
In creating this new treatment plan, the nurses drew upon home-based blood glucose monitoring tools and platforms that have been in use for years. The consumer-facing digital health market has created a vast number of devices and mHealth apps that allow those living with diabetes to monitor their blood glucose levels—in some cases without invasive finger pricks—and deliver insulin, sometimes through devices attached to the skin.
Laureen Jones, a clinical nurse specialist at the health system, says those continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems have only been permitted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for outpatient use. However, with the pandemic affecting workflows within hospitals, the FDA issued a statement in April 2020 allowing CGM use in the inpatient setting for the duration of the public health emergency.
Within a month, she says, the health system had created a multidisciplinary team and developed the workflow to replace the traditional process of finger sticks every hour and insulin administered based on those readings. The first patient received a device on May 12, 2020.
"The nurse places a sensor and transmitter on the patient, which emits a signal to a receiver that is placed outside of the patient's room that continually displays a blood glucose reading," Jones explains. "This, along with an externalized IV pump, allows the nurse to assess and treat the patient with hourly IV insulin without having to make an unnecessary trip into the room. This saves the nurse exposure and conserves personal protective equipment as the required trips into the room to treat the patient with insulin is reduced from 24 times to four times a day."
"As we have developed a hybrid protocol, the device is initially validated with every patient and allows for continued validation every six hours with a point-of-care blood glucose to confirm its accuracy," she adds. "This protocol has mitigated any risk that would be associated with device capabilities and has proven to be safe for the patient."
Officials noted the FDA hadn't—and still hasn't—approved CGM for inpatient use because of concerns about the reliability of the data coming from those devices. If that information isn't accurate, a patient might get too much insulin, resulting in hypoglycemia, or the patient might not get enough insulin, which leaders to hyperglycemia. In both cases, the patient could slip into a coma and die.
"In order to ensure safety, we worked with a multidisciplinary team to create a hybrid protocol that ensured the CGM accuracy was validated initially using fingerstick in each patient, and then accuracy was assessed with finger sticks every six hours," says Eileen Faulds, PhD, MS, RN, FNP-BC, CDCES, an associate professor at The Ohio State University College of Nursing and diabetes practitioner at the hospital. "This allowed us to greatly reduce the frequency of nursing contact while ensuring patient safety."
"These outpatient CGM systems transmit data from a transmitter that is connected to a sensor worn on the patient's skin," she says. "The transmitter sends data to a receiver, which can be a small, free-standing device or the Dexcom app on a mobile phone. While the manufacturer says the devices will transmit data up to 20 feet, the team had concerns about the system's ability to transmit data through MICU walls and glass enclosures. The team tested the radius of transmission and any physical barriers ahead of launching the system. When the phones were used to capture and display glucose data, the data could be transmitted to a cloud-based server that allowed the diabetes team to view the data remotely."
"In order to protect patient identity, dummy or anonymous accounts were created and authenticated with dummy emails for each patient," she adds. "This created a unique anonymous data stream for each patient. Additionally, we asked nurses to annotate 'CGM' in the electronic medical record when they documented a CGM glucose value, so we could distinguish finger stick point-of-care from CGM glucose values."
According to Faulds, nurses reported that the new technology helped to improve workflows and efficiency. They also liked that the platform continuously monitored patients' blood glucose levels, displayed trends for each patient, and was set to issue alarms if those trends were dangerous. This, in turn, reduced stress on the nurses.
The FDA action to allow inpatient CGM treatment is one of hundreds taken by state and federal regulators during the pandemic to expand the use of and coverage for telehealth and mHealth tools and platforms. Many of those measures will stop with the end of the public health emergency, which is now expected to take place in 2023.
Health system executives worry that unless these measures are made permanent, hospitals will have to shut down telehealth programs, forcing providers to go back to the old way of doing things and leaving patients struggling to adapt to new and less effective care. With that in mind, telehealth advocates—including organizations like the American Telemedicine Association and Alliance for Connected Care, telehealth vendors and a number of large health systems—are lobbying both Congress and agencies like the FDA and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to make those emergency measures permanent.
Philadelphia's Jefferson Health is one of many healthcare organizations using mHealth platforms and virtual visits to address the soaring rate of stress, anxiety, depression and burnout among staff and employees.
A Philadelphia-based university and health system is launching a digital health platform to help students and staff access behavioral health and self-care resources.
Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health announced earlier this month that it would make the NeuroFlow mHealth app and platform available to “employees, faculty and students across Jefferson’s university, clinical and corporate services settings.” The platform developed by NeuroFlow, a Philadelphia-based startup, offers digital access to surveys, reminders, symptom trackers, exercises and other tailored content aimed at helping people dealing with behavioral health concerns.
“COVID-19 challenged healthcare workers across the world like we have never seen in our lifetimes,” Jefferson Health President Bruce A. Meyer, MD, MBA, said in a press release. “This was something our employees asked for, and we believe this partnership, in addition to an expanded program for prioritizing holistic health and well-being, can make a true difference whether on the job or at home with family members.”
With stress, depression, anxiety, and burnout surging across the country, especially in healthcare settings, healthcare organizations are beefing up their support services or launching new programs aimed at giving employees access to on-demand help, either in person or through virtual platforms. This might include virtual visits with behavioral health specialists, mHealth apps that connect to resources, even platforms that enable the user to manage his or her own care and connect to counselors when needed.
Jefferson Health deployed the NeuroFlow platform to patients in the 14-hospital system in 2019, and began making those services available to students this past summer. The health system also conducted a pilot program with some 1,000 employees, and found that participants were completing, on average, 20 activities during their first month.
Healthcare administrators say digital health tools not only allow staff to self-manage and move at their own pace, using resources tailored to their concerns, but also allow the organization to expand its reach and push resources where they’re most needed – either in terms of treatments needed or areas where employee stress and burnout is high.
A review of published studies by Canadian researchers finds that a video-based telehealth program offers similar clinical outcoes as in-person care, while improving efficiencies and boosting patient satisfaction.
In an analysis of 24 telehealth studies published between 1997 and 2020 in 10 countries, researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health in Toronto and the Ontario-based University Health Network found the telehealth has been used to effectively facilitate care for patients in various stages of CKD. More recently, they found that programs are using consumer-based technology and devices, including wearables, to improve access for people who have difficulties getting to a clinic or hospital.
According to the research, video-based telemedicine platforms not only produced comparable clinical outcomes to in-person care, but also improved workflows and increase patient satisfaction.
“This is encouraging, but as the latest technologies are streamlined into routine health care, the ‘digital divide’ will become more pronounced, negatively impacting those without access to broadband internet connections, video-capable devices, and those with limited technology literacy,” Stephanie W. Ong, BScPhm, MSc, of the University Health Network, said in a statement issued by the American Society of Nephrology. “This is an area that deserves further study.”
Many healthcare providers shifted from in-person care to virtual care during the pandemic to reduce stress on hospitals and clinics and cut down on chances of transmitting the COVID-19 virus. Providers often found themselves trying telehealth for the first time or experimenting with new platforms and tools during this time.
With healthcare organizations looking to resume in-person care as the pandemic wanes, many of those providers are asking to be allowed to continue using telemedicine, or to at least create hybrid platforms that can support both in-person and virtual care. Specialists, including nephrologists, are particularly keen on embracing telehealth to improve care management and coordination for patients who would prefer more services in the home.
“The nature of CKD care makes it particularly amenable to virtual care given that relevant history, review of laboratory investigations, and counselling can all be conducted via virtual platforms,” Ann Young, MD, PhD, of St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health, said in the ASN statement. “The main obstacle of virtual care is the lack of a physical exam. Virtual visits are a powerful tool, but in certain clinical settings, a physical exam is necessary. Finding the appropriate balance between virtual visits and in-person visits is key.”
In the study, Ong also cautioned that some patients might not have the resources to acquire telemedicine technology or the broadband to use it. She worried that too much of an emphasis on digital health tools could exacerbate the digital divide, further distancing patients from the care they need.
“This is an area that deserves further study,” she said.
An editorial written by physicians from George Washington University in Washington DC and a patient perspective authored by Julie Glennon of West Palm Beach, FL, accompanied the study. Both cited concerns for patients unfamiliar with the technology or who lack access to broadband or equipment, but felt that the benefits could outweigh the challenges.
“Patients can benefit from access to their care providers, receive multidisciplinary care, include distant relatives in visits, and have the convenience of staying at home,” GWU physicians Susie Lew, MD, and Neal Sikka, MD, wrote in their editorial. “For those that are skeptical about telehealth, we feel that a telehealth visit is better than no visit at all for a new or existing patient.”
Spurred by the pandemic and digital health innovation, healthcare organizations are spending more money than ever before on healthcare technology, both to update what they have and prepare for a new future in care delivery.
A new report by Deloitte finds that investment in healthcare technology is soaring to new levels, spurred by both the pandemic and expectations that the industry will embrace new tools and platforms to improve care after COVID-19.
“Building off key technical advances and mass adoption of smartphones as well as incremental improvements in back-end healthcare+ IT infrastructure, health tech platforms have proliferated into a wide variety of niches, raising large financing rounds to keep scaling rapidly to meet rising consumer demand,” the company’s Road to Next report, authored by analysts Heather Gates and Peter Micca, points out. “The continuing consumerization of healthcare in tandem with macro trends such as aging demographics have ensured there is no shortage of market opportunities for health tech enterprises.”
According to Deloitte, almost $23 billion has been invested in the healthcare technology landscape through 556 completed transactions, surpassing record growth in the past two years.
This growth can be tied to multiple factors. The pandemic has compelled healthcare organizations to update and in some cases replace their technology infrastructures to accommodate new platforms of care, most notably telehealth and digital health, as the industry shifts from in-person to virtual care. This is also fueling a surge in innovative new technologies.
“Although challenges remain given the commanding market positions occupied by legacy software companies in many systems on which providers rely, innovative care models by younger companies deploying new, homegrown systems have started to lure consumers away from hospital chains,” the report notes. “Those challenges, coupled with increasing expenditures, have resulted in the continuation of hospital mergers, leading to highly concentrated markets across the US. Large healthcare organizations are often slow to renew tech stacks - but they will have to, eventually - which could provide incredibly lucrative opportunities for health tech companies looking to tackle parts of that overall value chain.”
In addition, healthcare organizations are outsourcing new digital health programs pulling in smaller, more innovative and nimble companies.
“From appointment logistics to virtual care to development of at-home testing kits, many such niches have seen significant upticks in funding as a result of the pandemic,” the report states. “Many of these businesses’ products and services only became truly viable over the past decade, thanks in large part to the increasing reliability and ubiquity of wireless communications and high-quality video, the reduction in costs of common tests, and declines in computing costs, among others. Health tech companies are now tapping the flood of funding to scale rapidly during favorable market conditions.”
Finally, with the industry looking toward a hybrid health landscape post-COVID-19, more attention is being paid to the consumer-facing technology market, especially technology that reinforces healthcare tracking and behavior modification at home. Healthcare organizations have always had an eye on the consumer market but were wary of trusting data from those platforms for clinical use. Now, with the proliferation of remote patient monitoring programs, they’re looking for ways to make those new tools and platforms work for them.
The Scripps Research Digital Trials Center is partnering with a wide range of digital health companies and stakeholders in a PowerMom consortium, aimed at using innovative technology to help monitor new and soon-to-be moms.
The Scripps Research Digital Trials Center is partnering with Microsoft in a new consortium aimed at improving research and care for new and impending mothers.
The PowerMom consortium, managed by the San Diego-based digital health think tank and including Microsoft, WebMD, the March of Dimes, Mae, the Happy Mama Happy Baby Alliance, and the African American Wellness Center for Children and Families, “leverages innovative digital and mobile technologies to recruit, monitor, and communicate with pregnant study participants,” officials said.
The project will use technology like smartphones, wearables, mHealth apps, and telehealth to address the rising maternal mortality rate in the US. Digital health companies participating in the consortium include Fitbit, CareEvolution, Sharecare and Woebot Health.
“Historically, pregnant people have been excluded from most clinical research resulting in significant knowledge gaps when it comes to understanding pregnancy on an individual level,” Toluwalasé Ajayi, MD, a physician and clinical researcher at Scripps Research and the principal investigator of PowerMom, said in a press release. “Staggering racial inequities make it all the more urgent for scientists to help tackle this national public health crisis.”
The PowerMom team has developed an app-based research platform, using Apple’s ResearchKit open-source framing network, that will allow participants to share their data through surveys, electronic health records platforms and wearables, such as fitness trackers and smartwatches.
The project’s launch follows a 2017 pilot phase during which more than 3,5000 pregnant women shared their health data with researchers through the mHealth platform. That pilot program proved the value of a ResearchKit-based platform in recruiting a diverse population of participants, and was featured in a recent study in npj Digital Medicine.
That study also laid the groundwork for the platform’s expansion.
“As the availability of an increasing variety of wireless, connected sensors grows, we anticipate including the automated daily (or even more frequent) collection of multiple parameters known to be germane to pregnancy such as BP, HR, activity, sleep, stress, nutrition, and glucose levels,” the study noted. “We can also assess the impact of new digital platforms and home-based sensors at improving positive behavior change to improve health. In addition to conducting research, a primary future objective of this study is to help women meaningfully interpret and understand their personal data through visualizations, risk profiles, and comparisons to other individuals like them. Ultimately, this will make for more informed decisions for pregnant women when it comes to things from medication choices, to healthy weight gain and ideal sleep during pregnancy.”
“Additionally, participant collected data from this app, such as BP changes over time, can potentially be shared with health care providers to help identify pregnancy complications and better understand an individual’s ‘normal’ values,” the researchers concluded. “Future evaluation of how to best aggregate and share this data with clinicians in a manner that is useful and not burdensome is also necessary.”
With a patient population that might know more than 350 different languages, healthcare organizations like Yale New Haven Health are turning to telehealth to make sure their care teams and patients are communicating with each other.
Healthcare organizations are turning to telehealth to help medical staff communicate with patients who speak a language other than English.
Bogged down by the challenges of finding on-demand interpreters who know everything from Spanish to Mandarin, the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) recently partnered with UpHealth, a Florida-based telehealth company focused on patient engagement. The health system has since deployed more than 1,000 of the company’s Martti telehealth devices across the network, allowing staff to converse with patients in more than 250 languages.
“The ability for healthcare providers to communicate clearly and effectively with people of all backgrounds and cultures is critical,” Tina Bennett, Yale New Haven’s interim chief experience officer, said in a press release. “Martti’s interpretation ability helps ensure that our patients are understood by the clinical team and that they understand what is going on with their and their loved ones’ healthcare.”
Roughly 1 in 11 Americans, or 25 million people, are classified as having limited English proficiency – and, just as problematic, there are more than 350 languages that that could be conversant in. They run the risk of not being able to convey their concerns properly to doctors and nurses, and not understanding their diagnoses or treatments.
The value of communication in front-line healthcare is well-known, and made even more so by the onset of the pandemic. In Boston, Brigham and Women’s Hospital estimated that during the early days of COVID-19, patients who didn’t speak English had a 35 percent higher chance of dying because they weren’t able to communicate properly with care providers.
With more than 3.8 million patient encounters a year in a highly diverse, urban area, YNHHS needs far more than a staff of multilingual care providers. Through a telehealth platform, care teams and patients can connect in real-time to translation services in the correct language. And while the service ensures that diagnoses and treatments are understood, it also goes a long way toward boosting patient engagement and improving patient satisfaction scores.
Informaticists with iPads are accompanying doctors on rounds at Georgetown University Medical Center, and they're using complex search technology to improve patient care.
Doctors making rounds at Georgetown University Medical Center have a new digital health tool at their disposal that can speed up diagnoses and treatment plans, improve clinical outcomes, and even perk up patient engagement.
Rounding teams at the Washington, D.C. hospital can now include an informaticist armed with an iPad and AI-based text-mining technology that scans medical literature for the latest information on patient care, including disease symptoms, medications, and suggested treatments. The resource gives physicians an instant, on-demand link to clinical decision support while they meet with patients.
"Doctors are busy on rounds and often don't have the time to look things up at all," says Jonathan Hartmann, director of clinical information services and data discovery at the health system, which has been partnering with Linguamatics since 2012 on text mining capabilities.
The support addresses several care gaps for physicians, whether they're checking up on patients in the hospital's general population or treating critically ill children in the pediatric ICU. Just as important, it allows them to access information with minimal interruption to the conversation they might be having with the patient, the patient's family, or others attending rounds.
"Their time is limited," says Hartmann. "They have quite a lot to do without looking anything up."
But an informaticist with an iPad changes that dynamic. Hartmann and his colleagues are far more skilled at digging up data than the traditional doctor, who might pull out his smartphone or tablet and type a word or phrase into a traditional medical search engine. An AI-supported platform moves beyond the simple keyword search, traveling down alleyways of relationships and side roads of context, going far beyond the description of a disease to pull up symptoms, side effects, and associated research.
Healthcare organizations have been excited about the prospect of AI for many years, particularly in automating and improving the clinical decision support process. Physicians are under constant pressure to stay on top of their game—with patients' lives in the balance. It's estimated that medical knowledge now doubles every 73 days, and those coming out of medical school now will have learned only about 6% percent of what they need during those first three years.
Forget the good old days of the kindly doctor dispensing homegrown advice with a lollipop or George Clooney look-alikes solving a medical mystery in the nick of time after a night in the library. Physicians need a resource that can allow them on-demand access to the knowledge they need to treat the patient in front of them. And while many can now pull out the smartphone and access a CDS platform on the fly, they still need to know what they're looking for.
Hartmann says Georgetown University Medical Center may be the only healthcare system in the world sending informaticists on rounds with doctors (a practice that has been curtailed by the pandemic). He notes that physicians often have their own unique way of searching for things, or they favor one search engine over another, while informaticists are focused on the search itself.
"We have expertise in searching and can do complex searches quickly," he says.
The value is there, particularly in the pediatric ICU. Hartmann says there have been instances where these searches have helped to save lives, and one physician in particular has credited the process with helping him treat a young patient with three different health concerns, a challenging task when taking into account how treatments and medications might interact.
The potential for this platform is even bigger. AI-enhanced data mining technology is only now being integrated into the electronic health record system, giving physicians and researchers access not only to literature but unstructured data contained in clinical notes and scientific papers, even—potentially— information stored on medical devices, wearables, and mobile platforms. The platform might then be used not only by physicians treating their patients, but by researchers looking to identify genes associated with certain diseases or pharmacists tackling the molecular challenges or drug targeting and repurposing.
The challenge, of course, is in cost. There's a reason Georgetown University Medical Center is unique in sending informaticists out on rounds. Most health organizations can't afford to dedicate specialists to those duties or free up the technology for clinical care. In time, it's expected that AI and data mining will become more fully integrated in the EHR, as the technology becomes more malleable and commonplace.
For now, data mining and AI are more commonly associated with research. Hartmann says the examples of the technology saving lives or dramatically improving treatment are few and far between.
"Not many people realize the value of it," he says. "They do not realize how [this] could help physicians."
And that's where the technology needs to go next. Hartmann envisions that integration into the EHR, perhaps through an "info button" that a doctor simply pushes on a tablet or laptop to launch the process.
"We have all of this information available," he says. "The big problem is getting the knowledge into the physician's head quickly."
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is funding three research studies that will study the effectiveness of mHealth tools and telehealth platforms in treatments for smoking cessation, pain and depression.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is investing $23.5 million in three studies aimed at using mHealth and telehealth tools to help quit smoking, manage pain and deal with mild to moderate depression.
“With the explosion of telehealth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, studies assessing how well telehealth strategies work in different contexts are highly relevant for many Americans, and we look forward to the insights gleaned from these studies as well as all the other newly approved research projects,” PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, said in a press release.
The three projects are part of a nine-project slate of clinical effectiveness research (CES) studies approved by the Washington-based profit, totalling $49.5 million.
At the University of Florida, researchers are getting almost $4.5 million to study the effectiveness of two programs: iCanQuit, which uses mHealth-based cognitive-behavioral treatments to promote cessation through a greater acceptance of triggers for smoking and commitment to personal values; and Motiv8, which promotes smoking cessation with automatic financial rewards based on evidence of abstinence. The study will co pare a combination of the two to iCanQuit alone and the Florida Quitline.
At Stanford University, researchers are getting roughly $10.3 million to study the effectiveness of a two-hour, online “Empowered Relief” cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) session for treating chronic pain against what’s considered the gold standard – 8 CBT sessions, totalling 16 hours, delivered either in-person or online. The six-site study will involve 1,200 adults with a variety of pain conditions and income levels spread across the country.
And at Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers are getting about $8.7 million to study whether virtual yoga sessions, delivered either individually or remotely to a group of participants, compare favorably against psychotherapy and medication of helping people with mild to moderate depression. The study will help to determine whether virtual yoga is effective and offer evidence to payers that the treatment should be covered.
In addition, the board announced two targeted funding announcements for 2022: a $30 million fund to support studies targeting alcohol abuse among youth 12 to 17 years old, and a $30 million fund to support research on delirium in older adults. They’re part of a three-year, $1.8 billion funding commitment announced this week, comprised of $1.5 billion for research studies, $180 million for dissemination and implementation projects, and $160 million for projects related to infrastructure and accelerating patient-centered outcomes research.
The state is issuing $150,000 grants to community health providers around the state to purchase telehealth and remote monitoring technology to help underserved communities access care.
New York is investing $3 million in a program aimed at helping community health providers purchase new telehealth technology to expand access to care in underserved communities.
Governor Kathy Hochul said the program will spurt public-private support for technology platforms that enable more residents to access virtual care services, particularly in areas where access is difficult due to geographic or economic barriers.
“Every New Yorker should have access to high-quality health care no matter where they live,” she said in a press release. “Telehealth is an important tool that brings healthcare to underserved communities and saves New Yorkers both time and money. Through these investments, we are working to make sure that everyone has access to high-quality health care and can see their doctor.”
The grants are divided into $150,000 allotments and will be distributed to each of the state’s 10 regions in 2022. They’ll be used to help community health providers purchase technology – including audio-visual telemedicine platforms and remote monitoring devices – for use in telehealth stations located in public locations such as libraries, pharmacies and homeless shelters.
Telehealth use has skyrocketed during the pandemic, as healthcare organizations sought to reduce traffic at hospitals and clinics and shift more in-person services onto virtual platforms. The effort is being fueled by federal and state programs aimed at helping providers purchase the necessary technology and broadband connectivity.
New York is one of several states actively supporting telehealth expansion. Along with the grants for technology purchases, the state has updated its telehealth laws to, among other things, reduce barriers that prevent providers from either using telehealth or being reimbursed for it.
“Telehealth is a critical component to the future of healthcare in New York State,” Kristin Proud, Acting Deputy Commissioner for the state’s Department of Health, said in the press release. “By expanding access to telehealth, we are removing barriers that will help expand the care and treatment New Yorkers need and deserve in a timely manner. These investments will also provide high quality and reliable care to historically underserved communities, increasing equity and helping to close the gaps in healthcare.”
The re:Vive platform, developed by Miami-based Heru and the University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, enables care providers to use an AR/VR headset to screen and diagnose - and eventually be reimbursed for - several diagnostic and health and wellness eye issues.
A digital health platform that allows care providers to use virtual and augmented reality to diagnose visual defects has been named a CES 2022 Innovation Awards Honoree.
The re:Vive platform, developed by Miami-based Heru in a partnership with the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, will be showcased at the Consumer Technology Association’s CES 2022 conference next January in Las Vegas. The tool uses VR/AR software inside a specialized headset to guide patients and their providers through several diagnostic vision and health and wellness exams.
The technology is designed not only to improve and expand upon the basic eye exam, but enable care providers to conduct exams in remote locations, or even through a telehealth platform, opening up access to underserved populations in the US and elsewhere. It also builds on the rapidly developing VR/AR market, which got its start in gaming and has spread to other areas, including healthcare.
“Globally, approximately 450 million people are affected by visual defects caused by strokes, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and other disorders,” Maurice R. Ferré, MD, chairman of Heru’s Board of Directors and CEO for Insightec, said in a press release. “Yet the decades-old standard of care is immobile, bulky, expensive, and requires a skilled technician or clinician to operate, limiting patients’ access to care. Limited access means that millions of individuals suffering from visual defects remain undiagnosed, causing irreversible damage to their eyesight. Heru’s technology brings us into an era in healthcare where improved access is no longer a goal, it is the new reality.”
“Screening for visual defects is only the beginning,” added Frederic H. Moll, MD, Chief Development Officer for Johnson & Johnson Robotics and a Heru advisor and investor. “In clinical development are therapeutic applications which include augmented vision correction. This new, cutting-edge technology will be the first of its kind and will transform the lives of patients with compromised vision around the world.”
Heru’s collaboration with one of the nation’s leading eye hospitals helps to give the platform traction in the clinical space – and standing with the payer market. To that extent, the company recently expanded the platform to include three new testing modalities, which will enable providers to perform six new tests that are supported by five reimbursable CPT codes.
Re:Vive was selected from among more than 1,800 innovative consumer technology products for the Innovation Award, which is judged by a panel of experts and handed out in 27 product categories.
