Biofourmis, a digital therapeutics company, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are rolling out an artificial intelligence-driven remote monitoring solution nationally. The solution, Biovitals Hospital@Home, can help hospitals quickly deploy a hospital-at-home program.
The solution allows clinicians to continuously monitor multiple physiology signals, through wearable biosensors and peripherals, for patients with acute and complex conditions, Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO and founder of Biofourmis, said via email. The remote monitoring is supplemented by in-home visits by the patient’s care team.
“The data is processed in near real-time to provide clinical teams with a predictive view of a patient’s disease trajectory and to detect issues and intervene early, [preventing] potential medical crises,” he said. “This approach has been demonstrated to decrease readmissions and emergency department visits and reduce overall healthcare costs.”
The solution also includes a companion app for patients that provides personalized content and allows them to communicate with their care team.
Biofourmis and Brigham and Women’s Hospital worked together to develop the Biovitals Hospital@Home solution. In January, Brigham published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that showed the efficacy of its home hospital program, which utilized the co-developed solution. Researchers found that the program improved outcomes, with 7% of home hospital patients being readmitted within 30 days as compared to 23% of inpatients, Rajput said. In addition, the mean cost of care per episode was 38% lower for home hospital patients than inpatients.
“Our research at Brigham Health Home Hospital has shown that we can deliver hospital-level care in our patients’ homes with lower readmission rates, more physical mobility, and a positive patient experience,” said Dr. David Levine, assistant professor of medicine and medical director of strategy and innovation for Brigham Health Home Hospital, in an email.
The hospital and company continued to work together to refine the solution and scale it, so it could be rolled out for use by other healthcare organizations around the country.
The national launch of the solution comes on the heels of CMS announcing an Acute Hospital Care At Home program, which allows certain health systems to provide hospital-level at patients’ homes for more than 60 conditions, including asthma, congestive heart failure and pneumonia.
Patients from participating hospitals can be admitted to the program from emergency departments and inpatient hospital beds after an in-person physician evaluation is performed. Patients can choose whether to receive care at home or in the traditional hospital setting.
“During these challenging times, a focus on the home is critical,” Levine added. “We are so encouraged that CMS is taking this important step, which will allow hospitals across the country to increase their capacity while delivering the care all patients deserve.”
The CMS Acute Hospital Care At Home program was developed to allow hospitals to rapidly increase their capacity and provide care to patients outside a traditional hospital setting as Covid-19 hospitalizations surge nationwide.
According to data from the COVID Tracking Project, there were 96,039 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in the U.S. as of Nov. 30.
Photo credit: ra2studio, Getty Images
