We hear a lot about how retailers are trying hard to bridge the online and in-store experience for customers, but have you thought about how this concept can help patients in healthcare? VCU Health, for example, is a forward thinking hospital that is looking outside the hospital walls for how to create a better experience and outcome for stroke patients before they even reach the ER. Partnering with the ambulance authority and technology providers, VCU Health is testing remote assessment of the patient during their ambulance journey to shorten their time to treatment. Led by neurologist Dr. Sherita Chapman Smith, this hospital’s story involves a passion for modern and mobile patient care, a lot of collaboration, and some real outside the box thinking in order to fine-tune and bring the idea to life.
At the heart of the effort is empathy – making an effort to “get inside” the experience of each person involved, understand their needs, and how to address those needs both simply and effectively.
The group that Dr. Chapman Smith gathered to the table included individuals from the local ambulance authority, the VCU Health Telemedicine Center, and technology provider swyMed, to determine what was needed to have a secure and stable system that would work and work well for all users. To get a patient perspective, the hospital reached out to specialty actors who have been trained to act in patient scenarios with medical students and residents, to give feedback on how they should interact with patients. The team trained these patient “stand-ins” on how to act out symptoms for a stroke.
These “patients” were picked up in an ambulance and connected via teleconference to the vascular neurologist in the hospital, who conducted a remote assessment; and when they got to the hospital, the scenario had them quickly advanced to the next stage of treatment. Afterwards, each one shared feedback via survey and interview, such as, did they feel safe, did they feel connected with the neurologist, were they comfortable, what did they think of the audio/visual quality? Participants ranged in age and ability to take into consideration comfort with technology and levels of hearing. The hospital also compared the responses with bedside evaluations. The feedback, combined with the experience from the physicians and EMT has led to proposals for changes to protocol and to the solution.
As the project moves along, they keep zeroing in on what will make the patient comfortable, and whether that works for the physician and EMT in the ambulance.
What makes it work?
Internal and External Network of Active Participation: “It’s a small group of vascular neurologists at VCU,” said Dr. Chapman Smith, “so I just asked my colleagues – can we give this a try?” She talked to her department chair, who connected her to the Chief of Emergency Services Operations and Medical Director of a local EMS agency, and then reached out to the communication office, and then to the ambulatory authority, bringing in representation from groups that all have a stake in how it would work, and how easily, and how smoothly. A small community banded together to test—what will work for the hospital, the patient and the EMT, and provide feedback. They have roles in working through implications to protocol, simulations, and dry runs.
Steady Visual Connection: “We wondered if the patient really needs to see the physician or EMT from within the ambulance,” said Dr. Chapman Smith, “but a main comment from the patient simulators was that it put them at ease to see a face versus just hear a voice… just a voice can add to the anxiety.” So the ambulance clearly needs a steady and secure connection with high enough bandwidth as it makes its way to the hospital. A modem, antennae, and single carrier connection did not do the trick; in test runs, the ambulance encountered multiple dead zones. “We want to be sure wherever we go, we can do the assessment/exam without a drop.” So, as part of the solution under development, swyMed software monitors for connections and can switch cell towers and antennas to get the best quality signal at the lowest bandwidth. It’s part of a portable solution the team developed to keep a live-video connection to a doctor all the way to the medical center.
Ease of Use and Access: During the assessment, the neurologist wants to be able to see the patient, but not have to click arrow keys to move around a camera. Taking this into consideration, the team designed a set of predefined commands such that a command would move the camera to a certain spot to look at an arm or a hand with as few arrow clicks and mouse moves as possible. Also, the physicians and EMTs want a mobile solution: physicians don’t want to be limited by being at a desktop computer; and the EMTs want something that is portable between vehicles, something not every ambulance has to have, since they are not all in service all the time. These insights all came from interviews, observations and dry runs.
There are a number of healthcare providers working inside the walls to create a better and more effective experience for health and care, but what happens before and after that care can have significant impact on outcomes as well. The work that VCU Health is doing is an example of a human-centered, not hospital-centered or technology/telehealth-centered care. The hospital is on a journey—still to finalize the protocols and rollout the remote assessment with real patients—but it’s a worthy example of forward thinking that shows how healthcare providers can step outside the storefront and provide real remote services that can really impact the quality of care.
Posted in : Healthcare and Outsourcing
