Remote BP monitor aids in early irregular heartbeat detection

George Fahnbulleh is the practice administrator at Gold Canyon Internal Medicine in Arizona. After using a chronic care management program for many years, George wanted to implement remote patient monitoring instead. A year ago, George discovered Qardio and has not looked back since: “Transitioning to Qardio’s remote patient monitoring solution, QardioMD, has been seamless through the support of the customer service team. Being able to receive our patients’ measurements automatically through the QardioMD dashboard has been really useful.”

Early detection of heart arrhythmias assisted by QardioArm

The use of smart blood pressure monitor, QardioArm, in his practice has helped to detect heart problems in patients early: “Thanks to QardioMD, we’ve been able to catch at least three patients who had heart arrhythmias. We were then able to send them immediately to a cardiologist. The benefits of using QardioMD are phenomenal.” In addition, George is able to personalize each patients’ treatment thanks to the full integration: “The platform allows us to get a good picture of our patients’ overall health and we can view their medication timeline against how their blood pressure is fluctuating. This integration allows for us to address the problem better and decide how to change their treatment promptly.”

“Thanks to QardioMD, we’ve been able to catch at least three patients who had heart arrhythmias.”

Patient engagement remains a high priority

Despite receiving patients’ measurements automatically, in George’s opinion, it is important to still maintain contact with the patient: “We find it beneficial to still phone them all, even the ones with optimal measurements. By doing so, the patient feels more confident and can understand their condition better. Keeping patients engaged in this way is critical.”

Moreover, due to the user-friendly nature of the Qardio app, George has found his patients are more likely to enjoy taking their measurements: “As the Qardio app isn’t too intrusive or burdensome, patients are more likely to use it often and enjoy doing so. The app makes it really easy for them to take their blood pressure multiple times. All they have to do is put the QardioArm on, sit down and press ‘Start’ and their blood pressure readings are sent automatically to our QardioMD dashboard. It’s this kind of usability that encourages patients to take their blood pressure from home regularly.”

Scalability

Gold Canyon Internal Medicine plans to increase the number of patients registered on QardioMD fourfold as well as hire a new staff member: “We plan to increase the amount of patients who are on Medicare, allowing us to fully maximise the CPT codes available for remote patient monitoring reimbursement. As we grow our practice, we will be looking to employ someone to solely focus on analyzing the results and the billing of the QardioMD dashboard, so that our doctors and nurses can focus on providing optimal care to their patients.”