The hospital issues equipment to patients with chronic conditions such as heart failure and diabetes. Patients with severe wounds take pictures of them and send them to the hospital, where providers analyze them and determine whether the patient needs medication or treatment. Diabetic patients send in their blood sugar readings while weight, blood oxygenation levels and blood pressure readings are monitored remotely, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In 2014, 12.9 percent of patients enrolled in the program with congestive heart failure were readmitted within a month while 20 percent of those with the condition not enrolled in the program were readmitted, according to the report. Approximately 250 patients participate in the program at any given time, according to the report.
“We are under considerable pressure all around to deliver better outcomes and keep costs down,” Ravi Ramani, MD, director of the Integrated Heart Failure Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told the Wall Street Journal.
