Fresh off its success with an mHealth program for diabetics, Humana is launching a telehealth pilot that targets another significant chronic condition population – those with congestive heart failure.
The Louisville, Ky.-based insurer is partnering with AMC Health on a nine-month project to provide in-home monitoring solutions to 450 Humana Medicare Advantage members in Ohio who suffer from CHF. The Humana Cares Heart Failure Remote Monitoring Program will include Bluetooth-enabled scales and blood pressure monitors, linked to a cellular modem and Interactive Voice Response Technology.
The partnership will be managed by Humana Cares/SeniorBridge, Humana's national chronic care division, which serves more than 300,000 members, their families and caregivers. Under the project's guidelines, care managers will work with AMC Health nurses to analyze data from the pilot in real time against national CHF standards of care, then provide coaching and follow-up care and arrange for an appointment with a physician if needed.
"With AMC Health's assistance, we'll identify our members most at risk and whose conditions are deteriorating in an effort to reduce readmissions and mortality, and prevent unnecessary emergency department visits," said Humana Cares/SeniorBridge President Eric C. Rackow, MD, in a press release. "We're confident that by supplementing the existing efforts of our care managers with AMC Health's remote patient monitoring solutions, we'll be successful in influencing our members to modify unhealthy behaviors and comply with treatment regimens, which will in turn improve their quality of life."
"We focus on delivering proven telehealth solutions and actionable analytics that can make a real difference in monitoring and preventing the onset of complications among members with chronic health issues," added Nesim Bildirici, president and CEO of New York-based AMC Health, in the release. "Humana is at the forefront of leveraging telehealth technology to transform clinical and financial outcomes. We look forward to working with them to set the standard of excellence for chronic care management."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CHF affects about 5.7 million people in the United States and contributes to more than 280,000 deaths each year. In addition, a study published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicated almost one in every four Medicare patients treated for heart failure in a hospital were readmitted within 30 days of discharge.
This isn't the first CHF pilot launched by Humana using telehealth. Last year, Humana Cares completed a year-long 34-state project in which 1,000 members with CHF were given the Intel-GE Care Innovations Guide. Officials are still analyzing results of that pilot.
A little more than two years ago, Humana rolled out an mHealth program for roughly 180,000 members diagnosed with diabetes in conjunction with dLife Healthcare Solutions. According to officials, clinical outcomes from that pilot, based on medical claims, showed an across-the-board improvement of 7 percent to 9 percent in key screening indicators.
The CDC, in a study conducted in 2011, indicated home-based monitoring could save the nation more than $7 billion through fewer emergency room visits – a figure based on estimates that home health monitor costs about $10 a day, while a night in a hospital's intensive care unit can cost $10,000 and a nursing home averages $200 per night.
