SIDEBAR: Vendors Also Respond to Pandemic
New services for HMEBs emerge in the wake of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Note: This is a sidebar to our "Pandemic!" feature story.
Of course manufacturers and service
providers in the industry are stakeholders
as well, and they too have
been contributing efforts to help
HME providers deal with the
COVID-19 PHE. Here are some of the
actions taken by companies serving
HME providers:
Glooko Offers Free Remote
Diabetes Care During COVID-19
To provide relief during the
COVID-19 pandemic, Glooko
(glooko.com) began providing a
no-charge remote-care solution
that delivers secure, live patient-to-clinician
connectivity.
Glooko provides various digital
health and workflow tools to
improve diabetes care and communicate
and monitor diabetes
patients in more than 20 countries.
The company made the move to
help reduce in-person contact as
part of the global need to curtail
the spread of COVID-19. This is
especially important for patients
with chronic conditions such as
diabetes, as they appear to be at a
higher risk of contracting the virus.
“For certain appointments, healthcare
professionals may determine
that the patient and their care team
would be best served by a remote
review of the patient’s personal
diabetes data and a corresponding
telehealth consult, reserving in-office
visits only for those appointments
where a patient’s medical status
truly requires in-person treatment,”
a statement from the company read.
BOC Offers Remote-Proctored Testing
Accrediting organization Board
of Certification/Accreditation (BOC;
bocusa.org) unveiled a remote-proctored
testing option to help HME
professionals complete certification
exams while maintaining social
distancing during the PHE.
BOC stated it had planned to
add remote-proctored testing as
an option later in 2020, but since
the public health emergency forced
many testing centers to temporarily
close, the accrediting organization
and its exam delivery partner, PSI,
worked to fast-track the service.
“We want the DMEPOS community
to know that completing career
development goals is possible,
even in our ‘new normal,’” said
BOC’s Credentialing Director
Matthew Gruskin, MBA, BOCO,
BOCPD. “With this option for the
Certified Orthotic Fitter (COF),
Certified Mastectomy Fitter (CMF)
and Certified Durable Medical
Equipment Specialist (CDME)
exams, certification candidates can
advance their careers in a COVIDsensitive
way and earn credentials
that support them in their goal of
quality patient care.”
WellSky and Qlik Launch
COVID-19 Heat Map
HME software company WellSky
(wellsky.com) and data analytics firm
Qlik have launched the WellSky
COVID-19 Tracker, a new COVID-19 heat
map feature that aims to help providers
keep their staff and patients safe.
Knowing that healthcare workers
are facing shortages of resources
such as personal protective equipment
(PPE), WellSky is giving its
clients free access to the WellSky-Qlik heat map (info.wellsky.com/wellsky-qlik-covid19-tracker.html) to
track the virus’s spread.
Leveraging data analytics technology
donated by Qlik, providers
can use the WellSky-Qlik heat
map to track current outbreak hot
spots, anticipate locations with
increasing infection rates, and
distribute valuable PPE resources
based on locations where clinical
staff need it most.
The heat map uses clinical staff
zip code data to compare staff locations
against confirmed COVID-19
cases across the United States. By
layering and blending this data,
home-based care providers can
see the PPE supply chain and where
staff might need increased access
to resources such as medical face
masks, face shields, gloves, and
gowns. This lets homecare providers
better manage their PPE supply.
“Traditionally, home health has
not been an industry that previously
used a lot of N95 masks and
related protective supplies. But now
we need quadruple the amount of
the PPE that we needed before,”
said Christina Smith, RN, BSN, MSN,
corporate staff development coordinator
for Medical Services of America’s
home health and hospice teams.
“With technology that tells us which
geographic areas have outbreaks
and whether our staff is located in
those areas, we can make better PPE
allocation decisions.”
This article originally appeared in the May/Jun 2020 issue of HME Business.