Mercy and Trapollo Partner on Groundbreaking, Large-Scale Remote Patient Monitoring Program

STERLING, Va., April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to reduce hospital readmissions, Chesterfield, Mo., based Mercy has contracted Trapollo LLC., to provide a complete managed service offering designed specifically for remote health monitoring programs. 

Throughout the duration of the 36-month contract, Trapollo's experienced staff will use proven processes, custom built systems and centralized facilities to implement all non-clinical aspects of the Mercy program. Trapollo will manage all assets and logistics, in-home installations, patient and clinician training, daily customer and technical support, and patient-to-patient transfers of the equipment.  

The technology Mercy selected for this program is designed and manufactured by Philips with its hub device, or TeleStation, paired with a blood pressure monitor, weight scale and glucose meter. Using the Philips devices, Trapollo builds customized kits based on diagnosis and ships them to a patient's home where Trapollo personnel install it, teach the patient how to use it and support all components while in use. 

Once the patient meets Mercy's criteria to graduate from the program, Trapollo schedules the removal and receives the equipment into the Trapollo distribution center. At this time, the devices are disinfected to industry standards, recalibrated and tested, and made ready to ship to another Mercy patient's home.  This process repeats every 90 days and should prove to be instrumental in reducing hospital readmissions.  The program is targeted to touch 12,000 patients over the course of the three-year contract.

Mercy is no stranger to disease management and remote monitoring programs.  Its Heart Failure Resource Center (HFRC) first began enrolling patients in the Springfield community in February 2012 and is currently extending to patients in 35 cities across 4 states. The HFRC strategy consists of a centralized group of registered nurses with cardiovascular-specific experience delivering care to congestive heart failure patients using available technology in the market.  However, the demand of everyday logistics on its nursing staff for a program of this magnitude caused Mercy to regroup and develop a new approach. This new approach has become the differentiator to the success of the program: outsourcing the non-clinical operations. 

The Mercy program is an aggressive approach to educate chronically ill patients on how to better manage their conditions from the comfort of their home.  In order for it to succeed, the equipment had to be installed in the patient's home and supported throughout the enrollment.  The partnership between Trapollo and Mercy creates a solid foundation for one of the largest residential telehealth programs in US history.  Sizable deployments of remote monitoring technology have not often been seen in the market due to lack of logistical support in healthcare organizations.  By teaming with Trapollo, Mercy has overcome this obstacle allowing the Mercy HFRC to remain focused on offering an excellent standard of care to its patients.  

When asked about the program, Trapollo CEO Todd Leto said, "The remote health monitoring market is continually introducing new ideas, processes and devices to both the patients and the clinical staff.  If the program is not designed with ease of use and adoption in mind, it will not run seamlessly thus losing support from all involved.  The benefits of remote monitoring are proven, but so are the obstacles surrounding large scale programs. Trapollo has continued to master our managed service offering to overcome these obstacles and truly enable remote healthcare.  Our partnership with Mercy confirms our shared commitment to the wellness and education of patients. Furthermore, it demonstrates how two forward-thinking organizations working together can create successful connected health programs by managing the details and staying focused on the overall goal of supporting the patient." 

"At Mercy, we are taking steps to reduce costly hospital readmissions but couldn't do it alone," said Sandy Sidoli, executive director of Ambulatory Care Management at Mercy. "We have been very impressed with Trapollo and the processes it has in place to manage our large-scale remote health monitoring program."

The Mercy/Trapollo collaboration to provide remote health monitoring to enhance patients' quality of life will become a benchmark for developing and implementing large complex programs of this nature.  By working together, Mercy and Trapollo have created a streamlined workflow that solves the most well-known obstacle for widespread adoption of residential remote monitoring:  managing the logistics and supporting the patients' in-home technology.  By focusing on what both organizations do best, everyone involved will benefit in the end, first and foremost the patient. 

Contact:
Kristen Tiede
(703) 434-3071
[email protected]

SOURCE Trapollo LLC