How Good Heart Cardiology Uses Remote BP Monitoring to Improve Outcomes for Hypertensive Patients

Managing chronic disease patients is one of the most time-consuming tasks in modern healthcare and is especially challenging for sole practitioners. At Good Heart Cardiology Vein Center in Torrance, California, staff routinely manage cardiology patients with conditions including hypertension, CHF, and obesity. With more than a few thousand patients in his practice, Dr. Gregory Hong needed the capability to deliver proactive care by monitoring his hypertensive patients outside of the clinic.

Dr. Hong began looking for a cost-effective solution to remotely monitor higher-risk patients, so that staff would be empowered to coach these patients toward better health. In addition, staff wanted a tool that would alert them when a patient’s vitals were out of bounds, so that they could make the appropriate intervention. This new system also needed to integrate with Good Heart’s existing platforms, and be easy for both patients and staff to use, streamlining workflows in a busy medical office.

After testing various remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions, Good Heart selected Claris Continuum®, a platform providing a total solution for patient care and staff monitoring. Utilizing direct connect cellular blood pressure monitors, the staff is able to receive real-time vital information, alerting them on any potential outliers that require immediate attention. This proactive approach to patient care, along with the staff’s intuitive patient dashboard, made Claris Continuum an ideal solution to improve patient care and track the necessary documentation for reimbursement.

Key Features Include:

Good Heart determined which of their patients were a good fit for the program based on chronic condition and willingness to participate. Claris trained clinic staff over two online training sessions, each lasting about an hour. Staff then provided the cellular 4G blood pressure monitors to patients in the clinic, along with a few simple instructions on how to take their blood pressure at home.

After launching the remote blood pressure monitoring program in February, 2021, Good Heart enrolled approximately five to 10 new patients each week, eventually growing the program from zero to 156 patients over seven months.

As patients began using their BP monitors at home, the Claris team helped the staff at Good Heart oversee their documentation process, and made suggestions to fine-tune workflows based on their organization’s needs and practices.

Because of the platform’s ease of use and advanced workflow, the program offers great scalability to Dr. Hong to grow his practice.

Since launching the Claris remote BP monitoring program, Good Heart has seen measurable improvement in patient engagement and overall health.

Participating patients have reported greater confidence and independence, because they know that their doctor is making sure that their vitals are normal, and because they can speak with clinic staff on regular RPM check-in calls.

Good Heart staff have reported that the Claris RPM system has improved their time management, because it allows them to prioritize patients who require attention, and helps them focus on higher risk patients where interventions can have the greatest impact. Some of the positive patient outcomes Good Heart has seen since implementing the program include:

• Number of Patients: 156
• Vitals taken: 61,254
• Alerts for outliers: 6110
• Medication Changes: 49
• Emergency Room Avoidance: 10
• Estimated Healthcare Cost Avoidance: $100,000+
• Care Plan Modifications: 100+
• Overall Patient Satisfaction: 9/10

Positive financial outcomes resulting from implementing the remote patient monitoring program include high rates of patient compliance, ease of workflow, and ease of billing. Good Heart staff report that the Claris system makes it quick and easy to convert clinical documentation into billable events, with the system automatically documenting each time a patient records their vitals, so that staff need only pull monthly activity reports for billing.

Using Claris Insight, staff at Good Heart are able to easily visualize the breakdown of their potential, expected, and lost revenue in real time to maximize their profitability:

• Total potential device readings revenue (CPT 99454) of $9858.00 per month\
• Total potential monitoring revenue (CPT 99457 and 99458) of $14,946 per month

Additional statistics seen by Good Heart since implementing the program include:

• Vitals taken: 61,254
• Patient Compliance: 88%
• Monitoring Time:  42,923 mins

In addition to streamlining care and outcomes for current patients, Good Heart will be leveraging the scalability of the Claris Continuum platform to expand remote BP monitoring to more of their hypertensive patients.