Telehealth, Home Devices Help Increase Bed Capacity in Hospitals

COVID-19 Prevention at Heritage Senior Living

The spread of the novel coronavirus through a long-term care facility in Kirkland, Wash., is an indicator of just how dangerous it can get if proactive steps are not taken to preserve the health of residents and healthcare workers in such situations. Introduction of COVID-19 into the Life Care Center—where life continued as usual for the 120 residents and 180 staff, despite growing concerns about an unidentified “respiratory virus”—ultimately led to cases among 81 residents, 34 staff members, and 14 visitors; and at least 35 deaths.

Living centers around the country are heeding the warning. Wisconsin-based Heritage Senior Living—a collection of senior living communities that offer levels of care ranging from independent living to memory care units—has taken several precautionary measures to help reduce the potential for the virus to enter its buildings. This means restricting visitors, reducing the flow of medical providers and residents in and out of the building, and even sending some staff home to do telework.

To maintain a consistently high level of care in its communities amid the new COVID-19 restrictions, Heritage Senior Living teamed up with Dictum Health to rapidly implement telehealthcare services for residents in five of its communities.

Dictum Health’s VER-Clinic telehealth cart systems have been put in place, along with Dictum Health’s Care Central telehealth management platform. This allows an off-site physician or care team member to instantly consult with a resident needing care within a fully immersive Virtual Exam Room (VER).

The system is also fully integrated with Heritage’s PointClickCare (PCC) patient records system. The patient clinical data that is collected using the point-of-care cart system is seamlessly and automatically transferred to the right place with the right context in the right patient record.

“Faced with this suddenly complex world of challenges, we needed to act quickly to minimize the disruption to resident care, as well as the risk to them, their providers, and our staff,” said Tammy Schafer, Heritage’s vice president of operations. “With Dictum Health, we were able to act rapidly, getting the systems in place and connecting them with our providers and PCC records system. Not only does this allow our residents to receive uninterrupted care, but our own staff can also remotely monitor them and check in as needed.”

The VER-Clinic cart systems are equipped with Dictum Health’s FDA Class 2 cleared IDM-100 medical tablet with a full suite of connected medical devices and peripherals. This allows for a fully immersive and high-quality dialogue, with a live-streamed exchange of medical data between patient and provider.

“It is so important for us to move quickly and work closely with care providers who are on the front lines, like Heritage Senior Living, to help them maintain high-quality care as they deal with the challenging new risk factors presented by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mory Ejabat, founder and CEO of Dictum Health.