Royal Philips and the County of Renfrew Paramedic Services announced a 12-month pilot that will equip the County of Renfrew Paramedic services with the Philips Tailored Ambulatory Care Program, enabling them to remotely monitor patients in their homes and prioritize them for intervention.
The pilot’s goal is to determine how expanded access to care through technology-enabled patient health monitoring impacts hospitalization while improving patient satisfaction and engagement.
With a population of 100,000 spread over a coverage area of 12,000 km2, Renfrew’s vast geography is the largest county in Ontario. This latest pilot enables Renfrew’s community paramedics to proactively treat high-risk patients in the home.
Attending to these patients before their health deteriorates further can prevent emergency department visits and hospital readmissions. For the elderly patient at home, telehealth can afford comfort and increased access to care specialists when they need them most.
“Moving to a population health management model with Philips will allow us to increase the number of patients that receive our support in the community. Our objective is to identify the highest priority patients who require early intervention,” said Michael Nolan, Chief of the County of Renfrew Paramedic Services. “We know that responding to early, subtle indicators of deterioration facilitates early intervention and prevents decline in the health of the patients we support.”
The pilot will apply Philips unique approach to population health management by introducing both clinician and patient engagement tools:
- eCareCompanion is a consumer-grade tablet application that allows the patient to have their vitals results automatically uploaded by way of Bluetooth connected measurement tools, including weight, blood pressure, oxygen levels and glucose measurement. The personalized patient tablet application is designed specifically to meet the needs of the pilot participants suffering from multiple co-morbidities and will be used to track their individual health and stay connected to their care teams through audio-visual technology.
- Meanwhile, clinicians will benefit from the clinician application eCareCoordinator, which presents the required patient information in a meaningful and easy to use format. This information will be remotely monitored by Renfrew’s community paramedics and be used to determine where early intervention is needed most.
- Each patient will also be equipped with a patient wearable device to anticipate a fall via the Philips Lifeline with AutoAlert service.
