I am still working with The California Healthcare Foundation to support consumer connectivity to their personal health information in California. As part of that work, I developed these work/dataflows for an organization that might transition the management of hypertension from an office-based approach (shown to be mostly ineffective) to a home-based approach, for which a significant body of evidence is accumulating for its effectiveness.
The problem this is working to solve is the one where a physician will say, “you should monitor your blood pressure at home,” (which many do today) but without any specifics. How often? What to do with the readings? How is the physician / care team involved in managing the data? These workflows seek to address that.
Reimbursement: There are already reimbursement considerations for home monitoring, approved by most health plans and Medicare. The problem with them is that they specify an outdated technology (so-called “Ambulatory monitoring,” much like a holter monitor) instead of modern, more cost-effective technology (digital home monitors). The good news is that the rationale for reimbursing has been worked out for this service, which could potentially benefit 1/3 of the United States population.
Questions? Comments? Feedback? Happy to hear them.
