COVID-19
Resource Library
As your organization faces the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Recovery Solutions is here to help you respond. Below, explore HRS’ library of COVID-19 resources to learn how others are using remote patient monitoring and telehealth solutions to address hospital bed capacity challenges, deploy hospital-at-home strategies, improve access to care, and provide clinical guidance and support to patients at home.
COVID-19 Support Guides for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) and Telehealth
Prepared by HRS’ clinical team, these guides help organizations navigate the challenges of COVID-19—and consider how to incorporate telehealth and RPM into their evolving care delivery strategy.
How to Reduce
Hospital Length of Stay (LOS)
A high volume of COVID-19 patients can be discharged from your hospital to recover at home—reducing LOS and increasing hospital bed capacity. This guide helps you understand which COVID-19 patients could be eligible for home health and how to successfully deploy RPM and telehealth in the patient’s home.
Ways to Divert from the Emergency Department
Hospital EDs are overwhelmed and hospital beds are at a premium. With no other option, patients are often left in observation status in the ED. Overcrowded EDs are strapped with limited resources and staffing. Use this guide to understand ways to adopt a hospital at home program using HRS technology as a quick and practical solution.
Considering RPM and telehealth solutions?
HRS partners with organizations of all types and sizes to deploy successful RPM and telehealth programs. If you’re considering RPM and telehealth, check out our COVID-19 Resource Library below to understand how we work with clients and best practices we’ve learned—and click on the button below to connect with a member of our team.
How Henry Ford Home Care Frees Up Staffing Resources with Virtual Visits
Henry Ford e-Home Care Manager, Mary Hagen, shares her recommendations for the first video visit and how to make patients comfortable with the telehealth platform.
Amid a Midwest Surge, Avera Health Takes COVID-19 Care to the Home
Healthcare Innovation reported on Avera@Home's Care Transitions program, highlighting how they're using telehealth and remote patient monitoring to reduce hospital readmissions and expand bed capacity.
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
RPM facilitates real-time insight into patients’ vitals through the tracking of blood pressure, temperature, oxygen level, and more. Clinicians can screen and monitor for COVID-19 in real-time, evaluating if their patient’s condition is changing and intervene accordingly.
6 Tips to Improve Your "Webside Manner"
Virtual visits are vital to the success of a telehealth program, especially during the recent COVID-19 surge. With the volume of telehealth visits skyrocketing, this is a whole new experience for both clinicians and patients—and patients need to learn the basics. Explore HRS’ recommended best practices for improving “webside manner,” including planning ahead, how to conduct a well-rounded visit, and what to do after the visit is complete.
Banner Home Care and ProMedica's Virtual Visit Best Practices
Kim Putnam of Promedica Homecare and Mandy Johnson of Banner Home Care share their six best practices for how to leverage and optimize virtual visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Symptom Surveys
Through symptom surveys, providers can screen patients based on CDC guidelines. Survey questions can provide real-time data regarding patients’ symptoms and help providers identify and manage patients showing symptoms of COVID-19.
Allina Health's Telehealth Program Enables COVID-19 Recovery at Home
Allina Health is bringing telehealth directly into the homes of hundreds of patients suffering from COVID-19. This article tells the story of Greg Boyd, a Minnesota pastor who used telehealth to recover from the virus.
CMS Announces Acute Hospital Care at Home Program to Assist with COVID-19 Surge
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took new steps to assist with strains on hospital capacity due to the recent Covid-19 surge—now offering new allowances for telehealth and remote patient monitoring in what CMS is calling the Acute Hospital Care at Home program
ProMedica’s Telehealth Tip: Focus on the Initial Installation
What’s one tip for seeing immediate success in your telehealth program? Make sure the initial installation of telehealth equipment is done properly. In this Q&A, Kim Putnam, ProMedica Home Care’s Telehealth Supervisor, walks through the process of how to install telehealth technology in patients’ homes.
LibertyHome Care Reduces Strain on Hospital Partners
Donna Turlington—VP of Homecare at Liberty HomeCare & Hospice Services—shares how Liberty is working with local hospitals and other providers to coordinate patient care. Their goal is to keep discharge planners and case managers up to date on capabilities during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Michigan Medicine and Emerest Health: Tips for Launching a New Telehealth Program
Both Michigan Medicine and Emerest Health launched new telehealth programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, understand how each organization responded to the unique needs of their patients and communities.
Virtual Visits
Providers can leverage virtual visits for patient education and prevention, for follow-up visits, and for ongoing screening and monitoring. Healthy individuals with routine appointments can use virtual visits to stay out of the hospital. For individuals showing flu-like symptoms, virtual visits can be used for initial evaluation.
How One Hospital Utilizes a Caregiver Telehealth Liaison
Emerson Home Care’s Telehealth Coordinator, Kathryn Castle, discusses how the hospital incorporated a caregiver telehealth liaison to help the patients navigate the telehealth technology.
How Three Organizations Rapidly Expanded Existing Telehealth Programs
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations were already using telehealth and RPM solutions. At organizations like BayCare, Liberty, and Penn Medicine, they were looking to rapidly expand existing telehealth programs due to COVID-19. Read how these organizations successfully pivoted existing telehealth programs to identify, screen, and monitor patients for COVID-19 while still caring for existing patient populations.
Steps for How to Conduct a Telehealth Virtual Visit
Virtual visits are an essential part of deploying a telehealth program successfully—but how do you ensure virtual visits are consistently conducted effectively? Read this article to learn HRS’ best practices for how to conduct a virtual visit, from start to finish.
Tips to Master Virtual Patient Engagement
RPM and telehealth technology allows organizations to provide patients with better access to care while helping empower them to stay healthier longer. In this article, we offer practical steps providers can take at the beginning of telehealth program enrollment to increase patient engagement in the short term and encourage lasting empowerment in the long term.
What’s Patient Education Got to Do with It?
It’s a little-known fact: the more a patient understands about their condition, the more likely they’re able (and feel empowered) to manage their own health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever for patients and clinicians to focus on education. This article explores ways to incorporate patient education into your telehealth program.
Patient, Welcome to Your New Telehealth Program
What’s a top concern we often hear? Organizations are concerned about patient adoption of a new technology when launching a telehealth program. HRS understands and we’re here to help. Start with this article to learn steps you can take to ensure patients—regardless of their age—are successful when using a new telehealth technology.
The Importance of Telehealth Governance and Executive Buy-In
Strong telehealth governance—and finding the right telehealth executive champion—are important parts to launching a new program. Read this article to understand tactics for recruiting and retaining telehealth leaders, ways to measure telehealth success, and how to define telehealth ROI.
Ways to Drive Self-Symptom Management and Workflow Efficiency
Within a telehealth and RPM program, risk alerts support an overseeing clinician with appropriate actions and interventions. When used properly, risk alerts help the patient achieve the highest level of self-care management—and for the clinician, they help create an effective workflow for patients. This article highlights how to establish risk alert standards and how to triage risk alerts appropriately to maximize their use.
TheraCare Home Health Launches Customized Telehealth Platform
TheraCare Home Health in Texas launched a customized telehealth platform to reduce strain on local hospital resources as communities prepared for another surge in COVID-19 cases. Read this article to learn about TheraCare’s telehealth program, including how they monitor high-risk patients, and improve patient experience and outcomes.
SummitWest Care Extends Care into Rural Colorado with Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring
In partnership with HRS and Colorado Mesa University, SummitWest Care extended telehealth services to chronic care patients and provided advanced screening and monitoring of college students to ensure a safe return to school during the COVID pandemic.
The Promise and Potential for Telehealth in Home Health
mHealth Intelligence reported on two COVID-19 telehealth programs: Banner Home Care and Henry Ford Home Care. This article highlights how home health providers are finding creative ways to leverage telehealth technology during the COVID-19 pandemic—despite reimbursement barriers—to provide quality care to patients.
CommonSpirit Health at Home Beefs Up Telehealth Offerings Amid COVID-19
CommonSpirit expanded its telehealth program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This organization partners with HRS and uses our mobile, tablet, and interactive voice response (IVR) solutions to extend care to patients across their 40 locations spanning 10 states.
2-Minute Video: Covenant Care's Experience with Remote Patient Monitoring and Telehealth
Based in Pensacola, Florida, Covenant Care’s Jeff Rodgers shares how telehealth has been vital in connecting patients with their families and clinicians during a time of extreme isolation and loneliness.
Los Angeles Home Health Agency Uses Telehealth to Drive Patient Referrals
American Homecare Health Services, a Los Angeles-based home health agency, launched a telehealth program to increase the volume of referrals and better serve their patient population under the Patient-Driven Groupings Model.
Michigan Medicine Pilots 2 Remote Monitoring, Hospital at Home Programs
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Medicine launched two programs designed to use digital health tools to shorten hospital length of stay and redirect patient care to home settings. The telehealth and RPM programs consist of 24/7 patient monitoring, virtual visits, medication adherence, and more.
Hospices Mobilize Dedicated COVID-19 Teams
This article from Hospice News reports on the growing role virtual visits play when providing specialty hospice care. Taking a closer look at Moments Hospice, this organization provides social work, music therapy, spiritual care, and skilled nursing visits in their virtual visits program.
When It Comes to Embracing Telehealth, MaineHealth CEO says, “We don’t have a choice anymore.”
MaineHealth Care at Home’s President and CEO, Donna DeBlois, spoke with Home Health Care News about the urgency—and necessity—of triaging a team dedicated to supporting and executing a telehealth program. The article highlights how COVID-19 patients are often leveraging telehealth services to receive treatment, which is helping to curb staffing shortages and shift reimbursement.
Hospice Care Center Provides Comfort Through Communication
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the elderly population in nursing facilities and assisted living homes particularly hard—but one facility saw an opportunity to get support from a telehealth system. Moments Hospice based in Wisconsin connected hospice patients with their families through virtual visits. Patients like Frances Mezra can visit with their families face-to-face and receive the emotional support they need throughout the pandemic.
John's Hopkins: U.S. COVID-19 Cases by County
It’s important to stay abreast of changes to data and national trends for COVID-19 so organizations can appropriately plan and implement strategies for managing care. Johns Hopkins University created a resource, which tracks COVID-19 cases by county, updated daily.
Read the Latest CDC Guidelines
The CDC continually updates their recommended guidelines related to the COVID-19 virus. This resource covers many topics, including how to avoid transmission, what to do if you're experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, the most recent science and research, and much more. HRS’ COVID-19 clinical guidelines are informed by the CDC guidelines.
CARES Act Provider Relief Fund
The CARES Act Provider Relief Fund supports American families, workers, and healthcare providers in the battle against the COVID-19 outbreak. HHS is distributing $175 billion to hospitals and healthcare providers on the front lines of the coronavirus response.
Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services
CMS is continuously updating rules and regulations surrounding the use of telehealth and remote patient monitoring during the current public health emergency.
PatientConnect Mobile
PatientConnect Mobile—HRS’ bring-your-own-device application—helps to expand access to care across all patient populations. Patients can stay actively involved in their health by using Bluetooth monitoring, symptom surveys, and provider communication tools, and can access condition-specific education. Explore how this mobile offering (available on both iOS and Android) can support your organizational goals.
CaregiverConnect
CaregiverConnect, available on both iOS and Android, incorporates the patient's caregiver(s) into the telehealth program, providing a holistic solution to managed care.
Meet the Urgent Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic
HRS' advanced technology and innovative features can help you:
Fill out this short form and a telehealth and RPM expert will reach out as soon as possible.
