Acceleration and Evolution of Virtual Care

Better, smarter, faster. The neural network needed to power. The digital ecosystem of health care is poised to transform care both inside and outside of hospital walls in traditional care settings, meaningful data analytics positioned in real time to drive better diagnostics, intelligent operations, seamless care coordination and integrated telehealth. This is the future of connected health care. We talk to the experts about transformational roadmaps for this evolving landscape what's working, what's needed, and how we get there together. Welcome to Health care on air presented by Verizon. Welcome back, everybody. To health care on air by Verizon I'm your host, Leah Sams. Marketing strategy lead for Verizon's life sciences and health care practice. We're at our last day at Hamza 2023 in Chicago. We're still here on the show floor. If you're sticking around and here today, come by and see us in booth 4048 will be broadcasting here. We've got a lot of solutions and demos and some great partners for you to talk to today if you come by and you're still sticking around. I'm so excited to have a conversation today with one of our partners with my doc, Lisa and frank, a great team that we've been working with really around virtual care and decentralized care. And so much to talk about today. Welcome guys to the podcast. Thank you for having me. So glad to have you. Frank, tell us what you do and a little bit about with my dog. Sure my name is Frank Peluso and I am the CTO and co-founder of with my doc. It's a virtual care platform and also a remote patient monitoring platform. I've been very fortunate to have experience in a plethora of industries and have built applications for a variety of disciplines within those industries and security, scalability, large database processing, all of these, you know, terms of things come together for health care because of the amount of information I might. Yeah and the amount of efficiency that you need. And that experience had helped me bring together the, the, the vision and the implementation of our products. Today, I simply said, what do you do? And Lisa very one's VIN and I'm the director of data science drug with my docs. So I get to play with all the data and find that fun insights in there and look at the puzzles and see if I can put the pieces together. So that we have something new and interesting to learn from the data we're collecting. Wonderful so let's talk about your care delivery model for people who aren't familiar with my dog. And there's a lot of virtual care, remote patient monitoring solutions. How is yours different? What is the delivery model that you're deploying today? So we have a multi-tiered delivery model. It starts with a per month per patient fee, either if you're a direct to consumer paid by you or if you are, you know, under a doctor's care. That's not with my doc doctor. There's a per patient per month model for that they pay. And see the tiers include depending on how much service you need. So for example, if you need help monitoring, we have patient engagement professionals that will help with that and there's a little bit more of a fee for that. We also have an Med squad where we have nurses and doctors to help with that. So you're providing the clinical piece? We do. We do provide that. All of our programs come with unlimited support from our technical staff to the patient, to the health care provider. And unlimited use. Well, that's on that. Anything to add on? I don't think either you covered it really well. So let's talk about some of the problems that you're solving for. Obviously, so much of our opinion is directed. We'd love for it to be more directed at preventative care and certainly we're seeing the scope of that. But most of it really pointed at managing what we all know is a pretty significant chronic disease management challenge across health care. Right so what are some of those issues that you're dealing with? Where are the pain points? Where are you driving new innovation into that space? Yeah so as far as. What we're trying to do is reduce your visits, reduce patient readmissions, literally and overall by being proactive about creating an overall healthier population. With that said, it reduces health care costs and, you know, gives patients a better quality of life. Yeah Yeah. Thoughts there? Yeah so what I'm seeing, being looking at the numbers where we are, we're seeing the improvements that are happening because what, you know, especially talking about value based care and moving people from uncontrolled disease states. So we're seeing, you know, 14 to 18% improvements in hypertensive and diabetic populations. That's a lot. And as you can extrapolate that out against the entire population. And the numbers we see going around here at hands about all these pain points in these problems, I mean, you start to see a significant reduction in those costs across the country. You know, so the challenge or the pain point that we see and what we've done for that, as Frank was speaking to earlier, is as with any new adoption of any type of technology in health care, is the challenge of how do we incorporate it into our workflows, which is why we offer those levels of services. So some people who have the staffing and can do it and are really committed, they're welcome to and we have that level of service for them. And if they're really challenged and don't have the staffing but see the value in the data and want that to help their rotations, they can have us do it for them. And we just get it to them when it's urgent and they want to see it. So that care management, court care coordination you're doing with the providers and giving them that data found that care coordination is incredibly important in rural areas to be able to coordinate care from a farm area to a local clinician or clinic to a major hospital within the city is critical across our country and that reduces cost and also, you know, reduces the stress on the patient. Yeah Yeah. So talk to me about the data that you're gathering. You give some pretty good statistics right there. I'm assuming you're gathering a lot of great data, but how are you also leveraging that data to improve that care navigation, that care orchestration process? Yeah so we're there, you know, as with all of medicine that we have the same challenge of adherence, you know, medication adherence, you know, appointment adherence, all the various things. And we don't have adherence. We don't have data, you know, so of course, we need that. So we've put a lot of effort into engaging the patients at many different levels. We leverage eye for reminders for adherence, so we send out automatic reminders if really they're not getting to their goal for that adherence rate, particularly for reimbursements to be sure that, you know, our customers can get those reimbursements. And so if they don't respond, we have that patient engagement team that's reaching out to them. Are you doing that with their caregivers, too, or just with the patient reaching out to the caregivers? Is there a coordination of like, let's say your patient hasn't, you know, reported and or, you know, followed their compliance plan? Are you talking to maybe their parent or son or daughter or someone like that if is they are on the care plan? Yes, Yeah. Yes, we do. There's an opportunity for them to get involved. Absolutely as we also talk to the care provider, if they're not hearing or will ask, also tell them, are you going in to see your doctor when and we'll send them in. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So we have those different levels too to manage that. Yeah so the power of any of this really lies in the data. We talked about it before to transform that into actual information. You mentioned I'd love to hear more about. And you know that research regenerative is the hot topic of the day. What's great is that everywhere, everywhere we go and I know and I'd love to hear more about, hey I am Yeah Yeah well and harnessing that data. Sure I can tell you what we're doing now in our vision for, you know, adding more. We're always looking to build on it because as you get more data, you get more insights, you want to add those things. Currently, we have different levels of API that help us maximize billing reimbursement, for example, or for adherence. We have we have AI for predictive analytics. So we're able to give the clinician the opportunity to look at the historical data and tell them what they can expect that patient to do based off that historical data. And the next two weeks are particularly in cases where someone is maybe kind of borderline, they're not sure what the choice is. You know, do it, change medication, do it, you know, have some type of intervention that predictive analytics to see what they can expect them to do over the next two weeks. And their trending may influence that decision making. We also are looking at enhancing interaction with the patient. So for example, we have screeners, healthy day screeners that also ask questions of depression if it's triggered. One of the things that we're working on is getting inference on the face. How happy are they? Yeah is there anything harmful? Look around them. Is their environment, is it is it cluttered, you know, things like that because all of those things impact well-being and they're not today not easily measurable and certainly not something that shows up when you head into a doctor's office to see that home environment. So it's really critical for will trigger an alert. Yeah and so the fact that you guys have a view into not only the patient from a data perspective, it's all of that, you know, ancillary information that's really powerful gives you a better sense of what's going on. I'd love for you guys to share some use cases. Do you have any know, I think you shared one when we were on a panel. It's a really interesting monia. Oh, we had a patient that her heart rate was shooting up very high and system alerted and she went into her doctor and the doctor sent her over to the emergency room and the patient was admitted and the cardiologist came in and said, oh, I don't believe that hearts do this. And, you know, there must be something wrong with your device. So the husband actually had the device with him. He goes, well, let's check it, put it on. And it was in sequence with the sophisticated equipment they had there. So the doctor went ahead and said, well, let's look a little bit further because, you know, this is very unusual. So they got her up and she started walking and all of a sudden it went off again. And what they found, which they didn't know it all was happening, is she had a leaky mitral valve where blood was backing back up into her lungs and she couldn't breathe. Yep, Yep. Yeah and alerted by another cop? Yeah with my doctor. That's a great use case. Yeah, we got to, you know, that saved my life and, you know, all these wonderful comments that came to her. Yeah now, that's great. That's a great example. And I've seen other cases where, Ah, another case where a patient was having difficulty getting their blood pressure under control and wasn't doing great on their medication management and ended up in the ER. It was chronic congestive heart failure. Yeah and our data going to her doctor has been significant in managing her health because it's directly related to her blood pressure and the medications working. And because the doctor is able to have such accurate and objective data to look at every time she comes, every three to four months, he's able to say, OK, I don't need to make an intervention. You're doing OK. Because, you know, just like a lot of patients, they come in their heart rate, you know, their blood pressure goes up just over at the doctor. And in what is the doctor? The subjective? Well, they say, well, it's fine when I'm at home, you know, how do they know that now, the doctor to be confident that it really is a white coat syndrome when and not have to make adjustments that are going to bottom them out once they get home and are comfortable again. Right and it has been very significant in that. She doesn't have to go to the doctor every three or four months. He's like, I got this data. As long as I get it, I can do a virtual visit with you and check in with you. And that's a lot for the elder population. You know, that's significant to them to not have to physically show up at their doctor's office every single time, telling them that remote care or virtual care means less connection with the doctor. So impersonal, you know, you get better care bingo in the office on my now this you're demonstrating with both of these use cases that this actually creates a more consistent connection between patient and provider. When you think about how most people go into the doctor, they go in, they leave. You have no connection to your doctor, no communication digitally or any other way until you make your next appointment and come in. And so that's a pretty powerful example of how that actually improves the relationship, improves the visibility between provider and patient purpose, improves the care. Yeah, because for both parties, they know that the decisions are being made on objective information and Active Data that is meaningful, you know, because in the fairness to the doctors, the doctor is doing all they can with the information they have. But if that information is not reliable or accurate, then it's not good. It's not good decisions. Yeah would you rather take to the bus to keep coming to pick you up and take you in or it stay in the urgent at their home. So many people don't go, they don't feel well enough. It's hard to walk. It's raining out and they just don't go. Yeah, Yeah. Navigating the system is overwhelming. It is. And all around me and is overwhelming as it can be for some, especially aging in place populations is. Is at. Actually a shorter learning curve, I think, and much more convenient. And they're much more likely to be compliant with their care when you remove those obstacles. Right you know, with my dog was actually took a look at call centers to look at how patients call in. They call in, they wait on home. They call the wrong number. They're they're moved around. They finally get an appointment, you know, and then they have to get to that appointment as opposed to just getting instant access or not even having to worry about it. Because of with my doctor's monitoring and firing alerts. Right already notifying your doctor, there's a concern that's a comfort to the patient. And it is to. Yeah, here's I'm with my doc. Your doctor is always there. Yeah oh, there you go. I felt I was today years old when I figured out lyfebulb. We should have probably started off with that. It actually stands for something, I think if that's my credit to the whole company. Yeah, Yeah. I'm up with the word with the stands for what? My work here is done. Ishares for web enabled intelligent telehealth. And then we came up with my dog. That's great. Yeah, that's wonderful. Wow very powerful service. How is Verizon enabling your server? How are we working to in that world? That's easy. Number one, Verizon allows us to securely share data. That's the most important thing. Yes, reliable, fast. It's, you know, all those wonderful things that it is. It's reliable and all of that. But being able to access data, whether you're a patient or health care provider, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you need to be on a network like Verizon, and that's why we chose that. In addition to that, Verizon is also helping us to reach out to the more rural communities. There's connectivity going on out there with the investment of Verizon has made half and that's allowing for reduced health care, better coordinated care and care for people that are in more rural areas that can't get in with. My doc was made to make it easy to make health care easily accessible to everyone and Verizon helps us get there. That's amazing. Thank you. We really appreciate it. We love the partnership we have with you guys. It's so important to on another podcast yesterday, we were talking about first responder pre-hospital spaces and things going on there. And, you know, the challenges in rural health with hospitals closing down in those areas and how important it is for us to support the ecosystem of care. And you guys are doing that. You're not just focused on getting our RPM to an individual patient, but that connection back to that rural hospital or that provider community actually supports the entire ecosystem of care, supports the way those health systems also need to thrive. So it's not just for the individual actually supports them for the whole system. It does. And there's a brilliant operation going on in Georgia called Healthy Georgia, commendable, you know, outreaching to rural health, coordinating care, reducing health care costs. Very, very well done. And I will tell you that we also use Verizon blue jeans, which is the video product, and that product is very attuned to the Verizon network. So we get good quality and all bandwidth levels and that's very important. Yeah Yeah. And it's not to glaze over the impact that reaching reaching those rural communities is because we have patients who are diabetics who either don't have access or can't or can't afford to monitor their blood glucose. And we are training them for the first time to take their blood glucose at home. And this is why we're seeing that increase in people going from uncontrolled to controlled. How can a diabetic be expected to monitor and care for themselves if they not they're not taking their blood sugar at home. And so that's why you're seeing that increase, because we're reaching those populations that didn't have that access. I'm just curious, are you guys working with the amc? You work with like paramedic at any of the paramedics? Because we were talking about how they often have a better view of patients and their communities because they're visiting them so often. I don't know if you guys are connected to that space or not yet. We are working on an opportunity with CPR. Oh Yeah. Yeah speaking of debrief, I was about to ask you what other stakeholders and partners are critical to your success? And Zuber would be one of them. Sieber is one of them. But you know, as far as stakeholder holders are concerned, you've got the standard, right. You know, we of course, the health care providers and the private payers and all of these things. But one that's overlooked is the media, the media's critical stakeholder, because you have to be able to get the word out so people understand what's available to them. If they qualified, should they be? Do you the first person to mention media? First one would be, yes, ma'am, you are. And I know. Absolutely of course. Yeah, I'm a marketing girl, so I love that answer because our messaging is really important for them getting it out there. Is really important. Yeah you guys are working with media today. We are and we are awesome. What do you sing at shows like hymns that gets you excited about the evolution of virtual care when you walk around? It's a little overwhelming. It's a lot of people in this space, a whole lot of innovation going on here. And what gets you excited? Well, of course, I'm the everybody, as you said, is talking about generative AI. And, you know, I as a data person. Yeah I mean, I can't help but another slide in about that, you know, but and you know, looking at because for me, if I talk about my dream of what I want to, I would like to see happen with this data. This these are novel data sets. You know, this is information we never had in health care before. You know, and I was a provider for years before I went into data analytics. So I understand trying to treat a patient when you don't know what's been going on for them at home and they don't always remember. They don't give you good information. It's very subjective. And I this is why I'm good with data. I like objective information. And so for me, I am excited about being able to bring disparate data sources together because that is when we start marrying this information to the other data we have already and have had for years with patients, like when was an intervention, when was an ER visit. And we start really putting those algorithms to work on those data sets and start learning. Then we can get the predictive and preventive parts of that. How much that's OK. Saying in the data on the health equity piece of data, I know we're hearing a lot now and need fully so about how important it is for us to um, to look at bias with data and the integrity of data and make sure that we're capturing culturally relevant, demographically relevant data because it can impact the way certain patient populations are treated. We make assumptions about patients based on data that's coming from only a slice of a demographic. And I and I feel like where you guys are deploying and gathering data, you're in perfectly positioned to really be, you know, capturing some of the social determinants of health and health equity and inclusion data that's been missing from the data that we're sourcing for a lot of disease and trial information turning those silos. So I don't know when in going together. Yeah so Yeah Yeah we're very excited about that possibility and look forward to seeing how we can influence that. Absolutely those are things. We're very conscientious. That's great. That's great that I find that the vision, the plethora of visions to move health care forward to for the betterment of humankind at this show is incredible. You know, and so much of it, you know, is looking at running on our partnership with as platform, creating a secure, reliable mobile device on the horizon network. It just is all coming together that is never before. You have just underscored what's really been the theme of so many of these discussions in this booth over the last couple of days, which is the power of partnerships. Now to that, this is a multi-stakeholder proposition. There's no one entity in health care that's going to be able to address these problems. We love building stakeholder relationships, just like you guys do, and we're certainly happy to be partnering with you and doing great things in health care. I get excited for the same reason Erin, our podcast guy and I have been talking about how powerful it would be for patients to see Yeah to get a peek into the him show. Aam because trust with health care is not always high among patients. It's a frustrating system it's got a lot of challenges but if they could see the brilliant minds and hearts that are gathered in conferences like this who are really committed to solving some of these big problems in health care, it's very inspiring. I would like a little speaker meeting and maybe we need to do that to get out to the general public. I want to have a shot of Erin on my podcast because he media and you know, we need the media and he's doing a great job. Put your mug out. He's great. Why you did it get you around to the front side of the camera here, Erin, before the day is done? Well, I have to have an interview with Erin, but I think he's been great. I know we and I'm going to put a pitch in for market scale because they're the ones that take care of our podcast from end to end, doing really great job. We love them. So great having you guys here today. I love having you in the booth with us. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Again, a reminder, if you're still here at home, you're still walking around picking up, get a giveaway, socks and all the things and make sure you come by. Booth 4048. We'd love to show you some pretty amazing solutions that we're partnering around. We really believe in the real time, collaborative, secure future of health care, and we love being a part of it. Thanks for joining us and we'll talk to you later. Thank you.