MedStar Health Home Care Partners with Telehealth Company to Prevent Medical Emergencies

Elkridge, MD (December 14, 2017) – MedStar Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), which serves patients across Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia, has partnered with Health Recovery Solutions (HRS) to provide high-risk patients with innovative, in-home telemonitoring services. The partnership arises from MedStar VNA’s goal to keep patients healthy and at home while reducing medical complications and the need for repeat hospital visits.

Telemonitoring allows MedStar VNA nurses to receive important information about patients’ vital signs and health symptoms in between visits to the patients’ homes. Patients who are enrolled in the home monitoring program will receive HRS’ telehealth technology package, consisting of a 4G tablet with Bluetooth biometric devices such as a blood pressure monitor, pulse oximeter, and scale. These tools allow patients to record their own vitals daily. Each tablet also comes pre-loaded with educational videos and teach-back quizzes individualized to meet each patient’s needs. Nurses and other home healthcare team members can access patient vitals anytime and anywhere through HRS’ ClinicianConnect web portal and smartphone application. Nurses will be able to respond quickly to abnormal readings while working with physicians to make changes to a patient’s care plan.

The HRS telehealth platform allows for seamless communication between the clinician and the patient. The patient can communicate with his/her nurse through text messaging or phone call from the tablet. Likewise, the clinician can contact the patient through the HRS ClinicianConnect web portal and smartphone application.

According to Traci Anderson, RN, MedStar VNA President, “As a home healthcare provider, our primary goal is to keep our patients living safely in the comfort of their own homes. With HRS’ innovative telemonitoring technology, we can better engage patients to monitor their own vital signs and look out for concerning symptoms. Identifying the negative signs early will allow us to intervene quickly, preventing patient harm and medical emergencies.”

Jarrett Bauer, CEO of HRS, adds, “We are honored that MedStar VNA has chosen our telehealth platform to care for their patients. Patient engagement is important, and we are grateful to provide organizations like MedStar VNA with a solution that helps keep their patients engaged and gives clinicians the ability to stay connected to their patients.”

About MedStar Visiting Nurse Association
MedStar VNA is a nonprofit, Joint Commission accredited, in-home healthcare provider that offers skilled nursing and rehabilitation for homebound, disabled and chronically ill patients in the Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia region. To support good health in the community, MedStar VNA offers vaccination and wellness programs across the region. For more information about MedStar VNA, call 800-862-2166 or visit medstarvna.org.

About Health Recovery Solutions 
Health Recovery Solutions (HRS) supplies healthcare providers with the most advanced patient monitoring devices, focusing on changing patient behavior to reduce readmissions. HRS' disease-specific 4G tablets are customized with medication reminders, educational videos and diet information while integrating with wireless devices. Tablets allow video chat, surveys, wound imaging and real-time risk monitoring by clinicians and patients’ family members. For more information, visit healthrecoverysolutions.com.