Extending home telemonitoring to transplant patients

MONTREAL – After COVID-19 patients, it’s now the transplant recipients’ turn to take advantage of remote monitoring, thanks to the CHUM and CareSimple. Since the beginning of the pandemic, some 75 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at the CHUM have benefited from remote monitoring when they return home thanks to the CareSimple remote monitoring service. Many others will benefit as the CHUM and CareSimple extend the remote monitoring service to liver and kidney transplant recipients.

The text below gives us a quick look at a Quebec telehealth solution that has made its reputation internationally and that allows the Centre Hospitalier de L’Universite de Montreal (CHUM) to offer moderate-risk patients quality and safe care in the comfort of their homes, while preserving hospital beds for the sickest.

March 2020:
The pandemic is raging and the CHUM’s Centre for Optimizing Network Flows (COFR) is turning to telehealth platforms to monitor patients remotely. Its objectives: to reduce the spread of the virus and safely relieve congestion in care services, while maintaining optimal physical and psychological care for patients. Thanks to an initial agreement with the company and the work carried out by the teams, the CareSimple remote monitoring service is adapted to the needs of the CHUM in less than 4 weeks.

April 2020:
Eligible patients are identified by the care teams and participate on a voluntary basis. Upon discharge from the CHUM, they are invited to download the CareSimple application on their smartphone or tablet. Patients answer daily questions about their health status in the app and the data transmitted feeds into a dashboard monitored by COFR nurses. In case of anomaly, nurses immediately contact the patient. They assess his situation and provide care, in collaboration with the residents and doctors of the team available at all times.

According to a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Digital Health, 89% of CareSimple users are very satisfied with the quality and safety of care received. Participants highlight the friendliness and dynamism of the platform and note the positive impact of the program on their psychological health. The help provided by the COFR team is seen as a safety net.

Michel Nadeau (pictured), president of CareSimple, points out that “the company focuses on the patient who is outside the hospital. We are working to digitize certain follow-ups so that the patient becomes an active player in his care plan.”

A study led by Dr. Marie-Pascale Pomey, in collaboration with the COFR, made it possible to envisage the continuation of this type of program with other clienteles. “Our first project is to work with newly transplanted liver and kidney patients. Thanks to CareSimple, patients will have access to connected objects that will allow healthcare teams to remotely monitor their health status,” says the researcher.

This initiative is part of the outpatient shift undertaken by the CHUM and this additional service is offered to patients under its responsibility.

About CareSimple
CareSimple is an easy-to-use, secure, and scalable way to offer Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) to at-risk patient populations. The CareSimple RPM platform offers an end-to-end virtual care solution that integrates into electronic health records, providing hospitals, hospital systems, and physician groups with software, medical devices, connectivity, logistics and professional services required to improve their population health programs with scalable remote patient monitoring. CareSimple’s seamless patient-to-cloud-to-EHR data transmission, smart alerts, effective engagement, and automatic documentation capabilities enable nurses and care managers to focus on patient care and give providers a holistic view of their patients’ health to help prevent costly readmissions and improves patient care. Devices that can be supported remotely include blood pressure monitors, glucose monitors, spirometers, remote weight monitors and pulse oximeters. According to the company CareSimple integrates with more than 85 EHRs, including Epic, Cerner and Allscripts.