An elderly coworker recently mentioned her participation in a home-based, digital, disease management (DM) program sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield. At first I was astounded that an insurer would sponsor this. While there's always been a clear business case for prevention and monitoring to avoid chronic care costs in the long-term, insurance companies haven't been exactly eager to jump on board. They might be starting to see the win-win though:
"Keeping [at-risk] patients stable and quickly getting them care when it's needed can reduce hospitalizations and cut the insurer's medical costs. And since the savings come from improving the patient's health and quality of life, programs such as Blue Cross' "Your Heart Matters" are generally popular with participants."
That's from
this article detailing how the above congestive heart failure (CHF) program works remotely from patient's homes.
"Every morning, Sedaris steps on a special digital scale beside the bed in her Raleigh home and answers a series of questions. Is she swollen or short of breath? Has she taken her medicines? The scale, provided by her health insurer, ships her weight and other data to a nurse's computer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield's disease management center in Winston-Salem. Any suspicious results -- an overnight weight gain of just a pound or two is a signal that Sedaris is retaining fluid that may strain her heart -- and the nurse is on the phone. She'll talk with Sedaris and, if necessary, send her to get medical attention.
The technology to remotely monitor patients' pulse, weight, blood pressure, blood-oxygen levels, general mobility and other indicators is already widely available. The declining costs and increasing use of high-speed Internet service should only accelerate acceptance of monitoring devices."
This is incredible! For more, here's another
personal example from the Healthcare Economist.