Health

32 HEALTH • June 15, 2015 But for HealthAlliance, it has also been a "very effective" way to reduce readmissions in the high-risk popula- tion, Dixon said. Before the program started, the readmission rate for the cardiac and respiratory patient popula- tion was 30 percent. Now it's down to 8 percent, which is half of the hospital's general readmission rate for the patient population at large. This comes as HealthAlliance, like other U.S. hospitals, is working to reduce readmissions because of the penalties the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid now levies on hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates. Because of this, Dixon said the program is well worth the $5,000 a month it pays to lease the 50 monitors. Dixon added that insurance compa- nies are starting to become interested in having their members monitored by paying a daily rate, and there are indi- cations they may begin reimbursing for the service in the future because it savesm money in the long-run. "It's better patient care," Dixon said. Better records sharing needed? There's a lot of exciting new technol- ogy being developed to enable home- based monitoring, according to Charley O'Neill, founder of the Westborough-based electronic health records software company SemantX Inc. One such development, he said: enabling medical devices in the home to connect to other devices such as televisions — part of the "Internet-of- things" phenomenon, which refers to the ability to transfer data over a net- work without human-to-computer interaction. Meanwhile, interconnection between the many health care provid- ers who treat the patients being moni- tored at home is lagging. While most hospitals and physician practices use electronic health records systems — 78 percent of office-based physicians and 91 percent of hospitals, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — it's difficult for providers to share data with each other, O'Neill said. He launched his company to solve this problem, and is working on a cloud-based solution that allows the data under one electronic health records system to be easily translated to others. That's important, since there are about 700 electronic health records solutions on the market, according to O'Neill. "Any capacity for electronic collabo- ration ... would greatly enhance a patient's care," O'Neill said. Laurance Stuntz, director of the Massachusetts e-Health Institute (MeHI), the state agency charged with promoting information technology in the health care field, agreed that the ability to share information between providers is a missing link in the sys- tem. On that front, MeHI has funded projects to allow providers to connect to the state's health information exchange, known as the Mass HIWay, where they can obtain patient records from other providers on the exchange. "It's not just, 'Can we deliver care at home?' but 'Can we share the neces- sary information with all the providers who are involved?', " Stuntz said. Hear For Your Life We offer comprehensive hearing care services including complete hearing evaluations, hearing loss rehabilitation, education and counseling. • Hearing Aids • Batteries & Accessories • Assistive Listening Devices • Amplified Phones • Hearing Evaluations • Wax Removal • Hearing Protection • Musician's Earplugs • Swim Plugs Holden Hearing Aid Center, Inc. 695 Main Street • Holden, MA 01520 Phone: (508) 829-5566 • Fax: (508) 829-5575 www.HoldenHearingAid.com • DrMoreno@holdenhearingaid.com Matthew Moreno, Au.D. Doctor of Audiology NO PLACE LIKE HOME Continued from Page 19 Patients' vital signs are viewed and discussed remotely. PHOTO/EDD COTE

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