Cypress at Home of Fort Myers, FL, won a Gold award for Quality for remote monitoring technology.

Although caregivers spend much time tending to patients, it is not expected that they will be around 24/7. How can caregivers continue to provide the best care when they are not physically with patients? Cypress at Home of Fort Myers, FL, sought to monitor patients remotely through a partnership with Keenly Health. Success with its endeavor earned it a Gold Award in the Quality category of the 2022 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards. 

The Cypress Cove campus distributed more than 40 remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices to patients in order to monitor respiration and sleep patterns for those with acute or chronic respiratory deficiency. The Keenly Health “VMA” (virtual monitoring assistant) uses ultra-wide-band radar technology to collect more than 4,000 measurements per second. It also applied artificial intelligence to analyze if a patient is breathing well without the need for the patient to wear anything or interact with the technology at all.

“The residents really benefit the most from the Keenly Health VMA devices at Cypress Cove,” Vice President of Innovation Joe Velderman said. “Our Cypress at Home medical care provider team is able to get trended analysis for residents who are struggling with chronic illnesses such as COPD, CHF, asthma or sleep apnea. We’re also able to provide 24/7 monitoring for residents with any sort of an acute diagnosis of flu, COVID, or even on a short-term opiate or psychotropic medication. Real-time alerts in change of condition give our provider team the insights they need to provide much more preventative care than trying to constantly react to changes in condition.” 

The technology feeds real-time information via Wi-Fi to a web-based dashboard that is configured with an alert to healthcare professionals if a patient is in need of emergent assistance. Within months, the Cypress at Home medical care team began working through workflows to write orders for the use of the RPM, document care provided and regularly review information coming from the Keenly dashboard. This technology has allowed the Cypress at Home medical care team to carefully monitor residents who have been COVID-positive and allowed for early intervention if necessary. 

“We believe that by using technology and data we can arm our caregivers and our providers with the information they need to most effectively practice medicine and we can begin to shift from a reactive care model to a more proactive wellness-driven model,” Velderman said.

Other award winners in the Quality category of the Home Care Track:

Silver: Asbury Communities, of Frederick, MD, won for sensor-based monitoring technology.

See a list of all the McKnight’s Home Care winners. Read about the Quality category winners in the Skilled Nursing track on the McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. See a list of all 2022 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards Senior Living track winners here.

The Platinum sponsor of the 2022 McKnight’s Tech Awards + Summit is KARE. Gold sponsors are iN2L + LifeLoop, IntelyCare and Saiva.To view the virtual awards presentation and recordings of the Summit webinars, visit mcknights.com/100422techawards.