Visiting Nurse Service Telemonitoring Program Keeping Patients At Home Where
They Want To Be
Visiting Nurse Service now offers a home-based telemonitoring program that
ideally can prevent the need for emergency room visits and hospital admissions.
The first unit was installed in a patient’s home on November 29, 2007. More
units were installed in patients’ homes starting the following day.
Participating individuals use a small, convenient device and peripheral
equipment a few minutes each day to check their vital signs in the comfort of
their own homes. The measurements are then transmitted automatically by the
device to a VNS nurse who readily accesses the information and acts on it
accordingly. These progress reports thus allow monitoring on a consistent
schedule and more frequently than scheduled in-home nursing visits.
Basic vital sign measurements are useful indicators of a patient’s condition and
can signal the onset of a potential adverse event – alerting the nurse to the
need for intervention. Parameters are individualized for each patient.
If there are significant changes in the patient’s measurements, the nurse, for
example, will contact the patient for appropriate action, and call the doctor if
necessary.
The program will initially focus on monitoring diabetic and cardiac patients in
their homes. Grants from the GAR Foundation, the Knight Foundation and AT&T made
this important and innovative program possible.
For further information on Visiting Nurse Service, please call 330-745-1601 or
800-362-0031.
VNS
Talks About Patient Telemonitoring on "Akron General Good Health Radio Hour"
Watch
a brief video on VNS' Telemonitoring Program
