Charleston (W.Va.) Area Medical Center has lowered chronic heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease readmissions and credits a new patient engagement platform for its success.
CAMC, a four-hospital system implemented the SmarTigr interactive patient engagement and education system from TeleHealth Services in 2015. The platform integrates smart TVs, hospital software and mobile apps with a library of interactive and educational videos. Clinicians can prescribe condition-specific curriculums through the EMR system, and the program tracks when patients watch videos and records that in their EMR. Patients can also take quizzes to assess comprehension.
"Many patients are visual learners and can better retain information from videos than from reading patient handouts," said Don Lilly, MD, CMO of CAMC. "Videos along with corresponding quizzes through the television in their room stimulate conversation and facilitate learning for the whole family. When patients involved their own family members in the process, they have more support and a greater chance of compliance once they go home. That helps keep them from coming back to the hospital."
CAMC saw chronic heart failure readmissions fall 22 percent and COPD readmissions fall nearly 30 percent in early 2016 compared to the previous year.