04/18/23

Connected Health: Opportunities Ahead for Primary Care

Joseph L. Ternullo, JD, MPHAssociate Director, Partners Center for Connected HealthAssociate Director, Northeast Telehealth Resource CenterVice President, Continua Health AllianceAdjunct Faculty, Northeastern University

4th Annual Weitzman Symposium

Challenges

• Aging population will become increase utilization burden on healthcare system

• Increased need to maintain independent living for the elderly

• Primary care and other healthcare workforce shortages

• Mismatch between financial resources available to deliver care and demand for that care

• Patterns of disease changing- moved into a period of an epidemic of chronic disease

• Aggregation of specialists in urban networks while care delivered in local community and primary care settings

• Patients well informed and demand “convenient care” and equal access to high quality best-practice care where the live and work

Healthcare Challenges

Organizations

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The Continua Health Alliance

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Continua: Overview

Worldwide industry alliance formed in June 2006 by Cisco, Intel, Kaiser, Medtronic, Motorola, Panasonic, Partners, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, and Welch Allyn.

Today, Continua is 191 organizations strong and growing. It is dedicated to making personal telehealth a reality by:

• Developing design guidelines enabling vendors to build interoperable sensors, home networks, telehealth platforms, and health and wellness services.

• Establishing a product certification program with a consumer-recognizable logo signifying the promise of interoperability across certified products.

• Collaborating with government regulatory agencies to provide methods for safe and effective management of vendor solutions.

• Working with leaders in the health care industries to develop new ways to address the costs of providing personal telehealth systems

Northeastern UniversityNortheastern is a large Boston-based institution of higher learning. Its leadership

assessed the need for new educational programs.

Feedback:• Unprecedented demand for systematic improvement in healthcare quality and

efficiency across all settings (ambulatory to inpatient). • Requests from external agencies for measurement and reporting of healthcare

performance is at a height and increasing.• Hospitals and clinics are significantly increasing their investment in: (a)

computerized physician order entry, (b) inpatient and ambulatory electronic medical records, (c) E-prescribing platforms, (d) personal health web sites, (e) enterprise data warehousing for enhanced reporting and analytics, (f) remote patient monitoring devices.

• New interdisciplinary programs are needed.

NEU Masters in HealthCare informatics launched. Will be online within 12 months. www.healthinformatics.neu.edu

“Use Cases”

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Continua Use Cases

To organize its work, Continua segmented the market in three large use cases:

Health & Wellness• Weight loss• Fitness• Email / chat / video• Appt scheduling• Personal Health

Records

Disease Management• Vital sign monitoring

(RPM)• Medication reminders

and compliance• Trend analysis and

alerts• Connect with family

care givers

Aging Independently• An adult child helping their elderly parents

age gracefully in their own home.• Basic life monitoring as appropriate (ADL)

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Continua Use Cases• Disease management market:

– evolve the current models of care; chronic and post-acute– connect patients, families and healthcare providers to the right information at

the right time– more informed decision-making– empowering people to take a more active role in their own care

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Continua Use Cases

• Health and wellness market: – health conscious and worried well– fitness and lifestyle trackers, PHRs

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Continua Use Cases• Aging independently market:

– residential care, independent living facilities, individual homes– support ADL, fall detectors, bed occupancy, medical reminders, …– personal emergency response services

Resources

The Center for Connected Health

• Division of Partners IS organization– Research and evaluation– Program development and rollout– Operational systems and support– Education and advisory services– Formalized relationships around the globe

• Our interest is in the use of technology to deliver care remotely:

– Heart failure monitoring– Diabetic monitoring and coaching– Blood pressure self-management for large employer

• Benefits include:– Increased patient engagement – Improved health outcomes– Improved patient-provider communications– All leading to improved lives and lower costs

Northeast Telehealth Resource Center

• Federally Funded through the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth• www. Northeasttrc.org• Foster the development, expansion and sustainability of telehealth programs

throughout the Northeast. • Develop and maintain an online database of the status of telehealth in the

Northeast. • Identify opportunities to improve policies for greater access to care through

telehealth. • Connect knowledgeable and experienced telehealth mentors with organizations

that are building their telehealth capabilities. • Serve as a key resource for helping to catalyze the introduction of telehealth

technologies into the care delivery process.

Critical Questions

Questions

• How can we work together?• What unique attributes do we possess that can accelerate our success

as a region?• How will the economic stimulus package funds alter the landscape here?• What efforts in the region are underway currently in the area of

connected health, telehealth, remote monitoring, etc and are they catalogued?

• When you think of Connected Health, Telemedicine, Telehealth, e-health, remote monitoring, etc. who in the region comes to mind as the local champion?

• Can we stay in contact and find ways to organize and get involved to help shape policy rather than respond to policy shaped by others?

• How do we best prepare for the future?

Ways to Learn More…

Join our discussion atwww.connected-health.org

Recently published:Home Telehealth

Attend the Partners 2009 annual Symposium on October 21-22 in Boston

Thank you

Joseph L. Ternullo, JD, MPH

jternullo@partners.org

617-726-4207 (office)