Windsor “Thank You Drive-Through Parade”

“During this time of pandemic, these celebratory events were a welcome opportunity for the various communities to come together and recognize the outstanding work of these front-line heroes,” says Kriste Merin, Director of Business Development.

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

Windsor care centers across California and parts of Arizona, announced they conducted “Drive-Through Parades” to recognize and honor their dedicated staff.

The staff at individual Windsor care centers always strive to go above the call of duty. In particular, during the COVID-19 crisis, these frontline healthcare professionals have extended themselves far beyond expectations, sacrificing their time and family to care for loved-ones staying at their care center.

In typical times, the facilities would recognize these employees with onsite parties, barbecues, or entertainment, inviting family and friends to attend. However, due to the restrictions of COVID-19, alternative celebrations took place. Families, friends and community neighbors were invited to decorate their cars and make posters, honoring Windsor staff. Dozens of cars, often accompanied by local businesses, the police, and the fire department, drove past the various facilities, without getting of their cars, honking and waving as a show of appreciation for the staff.

“During this time of pandemic, these celebratory events were a welcome opportunity for the various communities to come together and recognize the outstanding work of these front-line heroes,” says Kriste Merin, Area Director of Business Development for Northern California. “They were a unique way for the communities to show their love and support for the facility staff from the safety of their vehicles.”

About Windsor:

Windsor care centers provide short-term and long-term healthcare, rehabilitation services and assisted living communities throughout California and Arizona. Windsor employs professionals that provide nursing, therapeutic, sub-acute and rehabilitation care to over 4,000 patients daily. For more information, please contact 310-854-8424.

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“What the world really needs now is health restoration.”

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) today announced the second annual Global Lifestyle Medicine Week, with the observance this year slated to run from May 24th to May 31st. The week will showcase the health pillars of the field, serving as a public awareness campaign to highlight the benefits of evidence-based Lifestyle Medicine therapeutic approaches, including a whole food, plant-predominant dietary lifestyle, regular physical activity, adequate sleep, stress management, avoiding use of risky substances, and social connectedness, to treat, reverse and prevent chronic disease, thereby restoring and optimizing health.

Chronic disease, rooted in unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, is the leading cause of death and disability in the U.S., having reached epidemic proportions. Sixty percent (60%) of American adults now live with at least one chronic condition, while forty-two percent (42%) have more than one. Chronic disease now accounts for hundreds of billions of dollars in health care spending every year, representing as much as eighty-six percent (86%) of all health care expenditures.

Non-communicable, chronic disease is a looming pandemic worldwide, not just in the U.S. Case in point, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease Report, reviewing data from nearly 200 counties, found that it is what people are and are not eating that’s the leading cause of disease and death in the U.S. and around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancer could be prevented, primarily with improvements to diet and lifestyle.

“We’ve all heard the lyrics to the song, ‘What the world needs now is love,’ which is true,” said ACLM Executive Director Susan Benigas. “What the world really needs now is health restoration. We need a loud wake-up call regarding the state of our health, individually and collectively. We need a nation and world filled with Lifestyle Medicine trained and certified medical professionals who will educate, equip and empower patients to treat and, oftentimes, even reverse their chronic conditions through evidence-based lifestyle behavior modification.”

For many years, ACLM has been sounding the alarm regarding the continued upward trajectory of chronic disease and its unsustainable associated costs, although the intersection of chronic disease and our current COVID-19 pandemic is amplifying the urgency of the message. Data show that a majority of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had one or more underlying health conditions. Studies from the CDC and others suggest that, once infected with the coronavirus, people with such conditions are at particular risk for severe illness, including hospitalization and death.

“We’ve been hearing reports day after day that those who are most vulnerable are those with compromised immunity resulting from underlying conditions, most of which are lifestyle-related chronic diseases, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity and others,” Benigas said. “This emphasizes that the time is now—more than ever before—for Lifestyle Medicine to become the foundation of health and all health care.”

Celebrating its 16th year as the only medical professional society in the U.S. dedicated to the field of Lifestyle Medicine, ACLM is experiencing exponential growth, with a membership of more than 4,000 physicians and other health professionals dedicated to clinical and worksite practice of Lifestyle Medicine, which is synonymous with value-based care: reining in costs, while delivering far superior patient outcomes. Interest in Lifestyle Medicine is growing rapidly among physicians and other health professionals desiring to treat root-causes of disease—an approach most did not learn in medical school or in other health care-related training. Medical professionals, patients and those on Capitol Hill are awakening to the unsustainable prevalence of chronic disease and the associated costs that stand to jeopardize the solvency and security of our nation.

Internationally, Lifestyle Medicine medical professional associations are emerging on every continent, as the world is awakening to the urgent need to treat the root causes of non-communicable disease, including the looming global pandemic of type 2 diabetes. Some 20, and growing, Lifestyle Medicine organizations are now represented by the Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance.

The Lifestyle Medicine physician has been recognized by the Association of American Medical Colleges as one of the top five emerging medical careers. Board certification is also available. ACLM partners with the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine to provide physician and professional board certification. Since 2017 in the U.S., 761 MD/DO physicians have received board certification and 296 PhD/master’s level clinicians and bachelor-level nurses have received professional certification. Certification in the field outside the U.S. is offered through the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF LIFESTYLE MEDICINE: ACLM is the medical professional society for those dedicated to the advancement and clinical practice of Lifestyle Medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable health care system. Lifestyle Medicine is the use of a whole food, plant-predominant dietary lifestyle, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and positive social connection as a primary therapeutic modality for treatment and reversal of chronic disease.

More than a professional association, ACLM is a galvanized force for change. ACLM addresses the need for quality education and certification, supporting its members in their individual practices and in their collective mission to domestically and globally promote Lifestyle Medicine as the first treatment option, as opposed to a first option of treating symptoms and consequences with expensive, ever increasing quantities of pills and procedures. ACLM members are united in their desire to identify and eradicate the root cause of disease, with health restoration as the desired outcome. Learn more at [http://www.LifestyleMedicine.org.

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As part of their COVID-19 financial recovery, digital patient financial engagement can save hospitals millions

By delivering personalized financial experiences that align with patients’ medical experiences, providers upgrade overall patient care and save themselves millions – Kevin Fleming, CEO, Loyale Healthcare

LAFAYETTE, Calif. (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

One agonizing irony of the COVID-19 crisis has been its impact on the American healthcare industry. Health systems and hospitals have stepped up to build and staff temporary treatment facilities. They have ingeniously overcome shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators. Doctors, nurses and other caregivers have given their all – at great personal risk – to care for the sick and dying. In these and so many other ways, this episode in our history has been one of healthcare’s finest hours.

At the same time that Americans are celebrating the heroism of our healthcare industry, the COVID-19 crisis has driven the industry into a financial crisis. According to analysis just published by the American Hospital Association (AHA), the effects of COVID-19 hospitalization costs, cancelled and forgone services, added costs for the purchase of PPE and costs for support to workers is estimated to amount to $202.6 Billion for the four months March through June. For many, these financial losses are in addition to already precarious financial circumstances.

These effects have begun to moderate as COVID-19 case counts pass their peak and states allow providers to resume elective and other nonessential procedures. And although losses for many have been reduced by funding through the CARES Act and accelerated payments and incentives from Medicare/Medicaid, the financial damage wreaked by the crisis will take a long time to overcome.

Patients are struggling financially too. Long before the crisis began, patients’ financial access to care had become a growing problem. Because of high deductible health plans and copays, according to one report, as many as one in four Americans were either avoiding or delaying care because of concerns about personal, out-of-pocket costs.

Americans’ concerns about cost have certainly only gotten worse. According to a report published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Between March 1 and May 2, 2020, more than 31 million people had filed for unemployment insurance”, going on to estimate that, “nearly 27 million people could potentially lose employer-sponsored insurance and become uninsured following job loss.”

The report goes on to explain that the majority of these individuals should be eligible for Medicare/Medicaid or Affordable Care Act subsidies, but points out that “Even before the coronavirus crisis, there were millions of people eligible for Medicaid or marketplace subsidies who were uninsured.” In our opinion, that phenomenon will be even more prevalent following this crisis.

“Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste”: COVID-19 Lessons to Remove Inefficiencies, Restore Financial Performance Starting Now

Just as patients’ reluctance to seek care because of cost existed before the current crisis, healthcare revenue cycle has long suffered from a wide variety of systemic inefficiencies. This is particularly true in the discipline of patient revenue cycle, where our company, Loyale, operates. For healthcare providers, the industry’s rapid development of telehealth solutions in response to the crisis holds the key to tackling these chronic revenue cycle inefficiencies.

Prompted by stay-at-home rules and consumer demand; and supported by temporarily expanded reimbursement policies from Medicare/Medicaid, the rapid implementation of telehealth digital care delivery has met with widespread approval by providers and patients alike.

In a story from Healthcare Finance News, pointing to growing demand for congressional action to make Medicare’s telehealth reimbursement changes permanent, Emory Healthcare is called out for the “velocity with which they made this change. …They went from zero telemedicine appointments to over 4,000 a day.” The story goes on to quote Sarah Kier, Emory’s vice president of patient access for physician group practices saying, “some things won’t work for telemedicine, but for the things that do work our patients and providers would love to see it continue post-COVID.”

It’s simple, really. By delivering appropriate healthcare on a safe, compliant platform to anyone with Internet access, everyone wins. Providers maintain patient volumes and their associated revenues while delivering intimate, one-on-one care experiences and patients stay safe and comfortable in their own homes.

The same principle also applies to the financial dimension of the provider – patient experience. By scaling and standardizing patient revenue cycle systems using a digital patient engagement platform, health systems and hospitals can reduce or eliminate unnecessary expenses, cutting costs by millions. These often-overlooked expenses may include:

1. Merchant fees for credit card collections,

2. Processing, shipping and handling of paper statements,

3. Audits and management to ensure PCI and other regulatory compliance,

4. Aged patient receivables due to billing errors and patient confusion

5. Early-out and other revenue cycle vendors that purchase patient debt,

6. Multiple billing statement cycles,

7. FTE-intensive client and staff support functions, and

8. Outsized costs associated with synching separate operations such as acute and ambulatory care.

In total, healthcare spends a lot – we think too much – to collect balances from their patients.

Like telehealth, digital patient engagement allows healthcare providers to interact intimately with patients, but at scale. By delivering personalized financial experiences that align with patients’ medical experiences, providers upgrade overall patient care and save themselves millions. Perhaps best of all, savings can be achieved almost immediately. By shifting embedded patient revenue cycle costs to a patient financial engagement partner, providers can begin to experience positive operational and financial outcomes in as little as 90-days.

Following the COVID crisis, there is little doubt that healthcare providers will face a new kind of normal. This crisis is teaching us useful lessons for what that “normal” might look like. Regardless of when or whether congress acts to extend Medicare’s telehealth reimbursement policies, we’re convinced that digital patient engagement is here to stay. Trends in patient behavior and preferences will support it, and the imperative for healthcare to operate more efficiently than ever will demand it.

Kevin Fleming is the CEO of Loyale Healthcare

About Loyale

Loyale Patient Financial Manager™ is a comprehensive patient financial engagement technology platform leveraging a suite of configurable solution components including predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, multiple patient financing vehicles, communications, payments, digital front doors and other key capabilities.

Loyale Healthcare is committed to a mission of turning patient responsibility into lasting loyalty for its healthcare provider customers. Based in Lafayette, California, Loyale and its leadership team bring 27 years of expertise delivering leading financial engagement solutions for complex business environments. Loyale currently serves approximately 12,000 healthcare providers across 48 states. Loyale is proud to have an enterprise-level strategic partnership with Parallon which includes the deployment of Loyale’s industry leading technology at all HCA hospitals and Physician Groups.

Abridge helps us enhance the patient experience while also increasing health literacy and patient outcomes

PITTSBURGH (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

A growing number of UPMC patients are able to revisit their physician’s instructions after a telehealth visit through a new collaboration with Abridge, a Pittsburgh-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to generate a “smart” after-visit summary for patients. The goal is to give patients a clearer and more complete understanding of their health — from diagnosis to next steps —while empowering them to take a more active role in their own care.

Quickly responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, UPMC shifted much of its care delivery from in-person to virtual, ensuring the safety of both patients and clinicians. Telemedicine visits have increased 3,700% in a matter of weeks, going from about 250 encounters per day in March to as many as 9,500 per day by the end of April.

With care rapidly shifting to smartphones, tablets and telephones, patients face new challenges in recalling doctors’ orders — particularly if they are distracted by the technology or activities in their homes. “Living through this crisis, we understood we needed a new way to communicate with our patients,” says Suresh Mulukutla, M.D., a cardiologist at UPMC who also analyzes clinical data across the system to identify opportunities to improve care. “Abridge allows us a unique mechanism to stay connected with patients even beyond the actual visit.”

UPMC’s partnership with Abridge addresses this potential communication gap. Abridge’s technology records each doctor’s visit and uses groundbreaking clinical natural-language processing to highlight key medical terms and next steps, enabling users to review important details.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on adopting innovative ways to provide patient-centered care — even in times of crisis,” said Tami Minnier, UPMC chief quality officer. “Abridge helps us enhance the patient experience while also increasing health literacy and patient outcomes.”

When used for some telephone visits at UPMC, Abridge allows doctors to simply call their patients through an Abridge-enabled phone number, without any special downloads by clinicians or complex technology integrations. With consent from both patient and physician, the calls are recorded, and medically relevant sections are automatically transcribed by Abridge for easy review and with helpful links to additional information. After the call is over, Abridge users receive a text message with information on how to access their summary via the Abridge app. For in-person or video appointments, patients can access the Abridge app on their smartphones or tablets to record the physician visit.

Based on UPMC’s experience with Abridge during COVID-19, UPMC and Abridge plan to soon move the summaries from phone visits into the electronic health record to better facilitate care coordination.

Abridge, in which UPMC is an early investor, emerged from the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance, a collaboration between UPMC, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh that seeks to apply machine learning to health care challenges. Co-founded by Shiv Rao, M.D., a UPMC cardiologist, as well as Sandeep Konam and Florian Metze of Carnegie Mellon, the company aims to bring context and understanding to every medical conversation.

Rao notes that the company was partially inspired by his own family experience with a rare disease, as well as his experiences as a physician. “When you’re stressed and anxious — as many of us are during the coronavirus pandemic — it’s easy to forget the many small details that are crucial to maintaining our health and well-being. We hope that Abridge will help people stay on top of their health, from home to hospital.”

Clinicians interested in learning more about Abridge can visit http://www.abridge.com/clinicians. Patients can download Abridge for free on the App Store or Play Store.

To read this release online or share it, visit http://www.upmc.com/media

About UPMC

A $21 billion health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates 89,000 employees, 40 hospitals, 700 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 3.7 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. In the most recent fiscal year, UPMC contributed $1.2 billion in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region’s most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution, and paid $587 million in federal, state and local taxes. Working in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC shares its clinical, managerial and technological skills worldwide through its innovation and commercialization arm, UPMC Enterprises, and through UPMC International. U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside on its annual Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals and ranks UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh on its Honor Roll of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals. For more information, go to UPMC.com.

About Abridge

Abridge empowers patients to stay on top of their health. Whether an appointment takes place in-person or at home via telemedicine, the Abridge application and service records the conversation and creates an interactive transcript highlighting the key medical points. By keeping patients, their families, and clinicians on the same page, Abridge improves health outcomes for all. Visit http://www.abridge.com and @AbridgeHQ to get the latest information.

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