TouchPointCare on the Radio

ANNOUNCER:  Welcome to the Vertio Spotlight on Business.  This week featuring TouchPointCare.  You can find them on the web at www.touchpointcare.com.  And now here is your host, Damien Allen.  DAMIEN:  Good afternoon and welcome to Vertio Spotlight on TouchPointCare.  My name is Damien Allen, and today we have with us via phone in the studio, Mr. David Anderson of TouchPointCare. Good afternoon and welcome to the program, David.

 

DAVID:  Thank you very much, Damien, it’s nice to be here.

 

DAMIEN:  It’s a pleasure to have you.  Well let’s jump right into it.  What is TouchPointCare?

 

DAVID:  Touch Point Care provides web-based telehealth software.  It’s software designed to collect information from patients or other individuals in their own home, using their own telephone and without the use of expensive telehealth equipment.  Like all phones of telehealth or tele-monitoring, TouchPointCare allows providers the ability to provide remote patient monitoring which means they can check in on their patients to see how they are doing without asking the patient to travel to the provider or having the provider needing to go physically out to the patient.  Organizations use pre-existing questions series or they can create their own question series using both branching logic and questions or customizable alert thresholds from in those question series.  The stability of the question series allows internet, IBR, or non-clinician colleges to collect these patient responses and trigger alerts allowing clinicians to intervene when necessary.

DAMIEN:  What is the mission of TouchPointCare?

 

DAVID:  Our mission is to offer the benefits of telehealth to everyone.

 

DAMIEN:  Who do you serve?

 

DAVID:  Most of our clients are healthcare providers such as hospitals, home health agencies, physician practices, but we also work with insurance companies, senior service providers, disease management companies, and durable medical equipment organizations, social service organizations, call centers, just to name a few.  Despite all of these various types of companies there are a few main areas for usage or utilization.  The first and largest use is remote patient monitoring, usually for chronic care and other conditions requiring on-going patient data collection and interaction.  We also do a lot of post-discharge follow-up programs either from hospitals or physician practices.  We also do other programs with durable medical equipment or DME providers.  Finally we do a lot of satisfaction and marketing surveys.

 

DAMIEN:  Could you explain the process to us, David?

 

DAVID:  Sure.  It’s pretty simple.  Organizations can use existing question series already built to meet specific needs such as a heart failure or a diabetes monitoring program or a satisfaction survey.  However, they can also customize the questions to construct any kind of interactive dialog with both questions as well as statements pre-scripted.  Once an organization has identified a step in a question series, they can also set alert thresholds for these questions so that if responses are outside of the set parameters the system will generate alerts to notify a case manager that the patient or participant needs attention.  Once these alert thresholds have been set, they can then set the schedule frequency that the participants will be asked of these questions which might be daily or perhaps Mondays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. or any other possible combinations.  Finally they can decide which communication method is most appropriate for that patient or for that participant population which can be the telephone either through a live agent or via interactive voice recognition or IVR or via the internet or via email or via texting.  In fact,  a key feature of the TouchPointCare system is that we offer providers the ability to connect with their patients with all of these existing communication tools so that they don’t need to purchase additional or more expensive communication or telehealth equipment that needs to be in the home.

 

DAMIEN:  How easy is it to use?

DAVID:  Well, for the patient it is as simple as picking up the phone and responding to questions through any kind of normal conversation.  For the provider it’s also easy to use.  They literally can begin using the system the very first day they will be getting implemented.

 

DAMIEN:  What type of information will you be gathering?

 

DAVID:  Well the system can collect information of any kind.  It can be information around a chronic cure condition as we have discussed or it can be around patient satisfaction, it can be post surgical questions, or it can be questions from an audit perspective.  So every one of our client organizations has the ability to identify the kinds of information they would like to collect and be able to do so remotely.  It has a great deal of flexibility to gather almost any kind of information.

 

DAMIEN:  What are the key benefits to the provider when using TouchPointCare, David?

 

DAVID:  I think the biggest benefit in this day and age is being cost effective.  TouchPointCare offers providers the ability to improve productivity and reduce cost and because of that it is able to offer a strong return on investment for those organizations that are working with us.  TouchPointCare allows nurses or clinicians to manage patients more effectively and efficiently and in this time of the nursing shortage that’s critically important.  In addition to the cost benefit, another key benefit for organizations is the ability to improve quality of care and to improve outcomes along with all types of telehealth.  It’s very important for clinicians to be able to manage by exception and to be able to follow up with those patients who are having issues or having problems that have been identified through the alert process.  And finally, another key benefit is the ability for organizations that are using telehealth to gain market share, to be able to work with physicians to allow physicians to find out about the telehealth that is being provided which will again help increase their market share.

 

DAMIEN:  What would be the key benefits for the patients then?

 

DAVID:  Well the key benefit for the patient is simplicity.   It’s simple to use.  The patients only need their own telephone.  So it’s a piece of technology that is pretty advanced.  The telephone is pretty sophisticated, but patients are very, very comfortable with it so they can use their own phone and, quite frankly, that’s all they need.  Patients and family members are usually very satisfied because of improved communication, more frequent communication between the provider and the patient and so that does lead to improved satisfaction.  Patient care is often improved, because whenever troubling symptoms do occur, they are caught through the alerts so that provides better care for the patient as well.

 

DAMIEN:  Is there a cost benefit to all this?

 

DAVID:  Absolutely.  The clinical benefits of telehealth are pretty much undisputed.  Almost all of the research has indicated that telehealth is currently beneficial, but what’s not so clear is whether there is a return on investment.  Mainly because some of the other organizations or other telehealth vendors are using more expensive equipment, but with TouchPointCare you don’t need equipment.  They are able to use the patient’s or the participant’s own telephone.  This is a huge benefit from a cost perspective.  They get the benefits of telehealth from the clinical perspective, but without the cost and so because of that there is a tremendous value there.

 

DAMIEN:  Well we’d like to thank you for this opportunity to explain TouchPointCare to us all, David.

DAVID:  Thank you very much.  I appreciate the opportunity.

 

DAMIEN:  We’ve been speaking with David Anderson of TouchPointCare, and we’ve been talking about the TouchPointCare system.  You’ve been listening to the Vertio Spotlight on TouchPointCare. My name is Damien Allen.  Everybody have a great afternoon.

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