Transforming Care Delivery
At CDHI, we strive toward a world where patients would oversee their own care, exceptional care would be delivered without borders, and human and machine intelligence would be aligned to deliver the next generation of care.
While we’re not there yet, we have taken many strides forward in that journey, driving to make UCSF the leader in care that is personalized, more empathetic, and accessible to all patients regardless of location, whenever needed.
But there are challenges for a medical center like UCSF where patients with complex conditions require more comprehensive care, including a lack of continuous monitoring, too few specialists to go around, and difficulty in finding the right physician.
In his recent presentation, “Transforming Care Delivery,” at the UC 2021 Telehealth Summit, Aaron Neinstein, M.D., Vice President of Digital Health at CDHI, highlighted some of the digital innovation and technology currently deployed.
Virtual Lung Chat Program
About 500 UCSF post-lung transplant patients across the country needed to be monitored during the pandemic but as they were immunocompromised, travel was too risky.
In collaboration with the CDHI’s Digital Patient Experience program, Steve Hays, M.D., Medical Director, and the Lung Transplant Program, the Virtual Lung Chat Program was rapidly deployed. Patients were sent a digital spirometry device and enrolled in a chat program allowing them to report their lung function and any symptoms, and receive immediate feedback right on their phone. If a patient reported a drop in lung function, the Lung Transplant team was alerted and checked in with them. If the patient was stable, routine appointments were postponed thereby saving time, money, and travel.
The successful program has been able to eliminate up to six
in-person visits per patient in the first two years post-transplant.
Kidney Transplant Pre-Listing
For patients who might need a kidney transplant, the listing process is expensive, time-consuming, and with limited appointment slots, often shut out. Additionally, patients whose condition might not progress to where they need to be on the list could be wasting their time and money being on the list prematurely.
With the creation of a virtual pre-list program, patients who might one day need to get listed can enter the process early. They can begin receiving information such as how to start looking for a living donor, and the criteria needed to enter the formal listing process.
The transplant team can also stay up-to-date with patients’ symptoms and their health status, and be more targeted about pulling them into the listing when they need it.
Faster Referral Scheduling
There are two ways in which referral scheduling has been expedited.
Medical centers like UCSF still get hundreds of thousands of referrals a year via fax, with staff manually typing information, which leads to delay in care.
By deploying artificial intelligence software, information is pulled from the referral into the patient’s electronic health record allowing staff to respond to referrals faster.
In addition, UCSF’s Cancer Center offers someone who is newly referred for a cancer diagnosis to initiate self-scheduling on the web, saving time and reducing stress.
According to Neinstein, these programs indicate a shift in bringing care to the person whenever needed rather than just for in-office visits or during appointments. He also talked about the importance of measurement, being able to view health information, and the problems patients face in real-time.
Neinstein likened the experience to how Netflix personalizes movies to the person watching. While we are not there yet with healthcare, digital health innovation is about continuous improvement through iteration and better understanding
our patients.
He also reminded the importance of equity in design and understanding different user types and the needs of different populations.
In closing, Neinstein encouraged participants to dream big, understand patient needs and start small, and to ask questions and reimagine workflows to support patient needs.
For more information about CDHI digital innovation and solutions, visit www.centerfordigitalhealthinnovation.org.