St John of God Murdoch Hospital in Perth is rolling out its "Healthcare at Home" platform to surgical specialty wards including urology and gynaecology following its success in reducing preventable patient readmissions in the general surgical wards.

In 2021, Australian digital health company Personify Care delivered a platform at the 530-bed private hospital, enabling post-surgery home care for patients with community-based clinical support.

WHY IT MATTERS

As part of St John of God Healthcare's digital transformation program, the system has been highly effective in managing patients' after discharge and detecting emerging care needs through the collection of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs).

"The technology has been shown to be successfully adopted across patient cohorts, including older and high-risk patients. This supports the change in community expectations as it leans ever closer to the widespread use of technology in our day-to-day interactions," Simone Scales, the project manager at St John of God Healthcare, said.

"It's now much easier to manage patients. Personify Care has brought efficiencies to the program such as the speed in which nurses can register patients and the ability to quickly see which patients need additional care."

Patients in the Healthcare at Home program remain under the medical governance of the hospital for 14 days post-discharge, with the system supporting remote health management and patient self-management activities.

The digital collection of PROMs allows real-time alerts to be issued to nursing staff, providing early indicators of patient deterioration.

CEO of Personify Care Ken Saman told Healthcare IT News that St John of God's decision to expand the system highlights the benefits of industry/provider collaboration.

"The extension of the work with St John of God is an excellent example of industry and healthcare working together to optimise patient experience and advance post-discharge care through realtime PROMs," Saman said.

"We look forward to extending the experience across additional speciality areas to deliver on this evidenced-based model of care."

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Prior to Personify Care's contribution, post-discharge care had been paper based and time consuming, and offered only to moderate to high-risk patients. The scalable digital platform is now benefiting more patients and clinicians across more disciplines, and reducing the need for nursing staff resources.

Healthcare at Home works by allowing patients to send messages to staff via the Personify Care app if they have any concerns, with questions relating to pain management, bowel movement and hydration among the most common. Some of these questions are answered by health management education information automatically sent to patients via the app. Patients can trigger a red flag and nursing staff will contact them to assess how they are recovering, provide education and escalate care if required.

The platform also provides automatic digital patient check-ins, targeted clinical time to patients based on their reported progress, and the ability for staff to flag patients to the next nurses on shift and leave notes.

According to St John of God Healthcare's assessment, patients have reported feeling more supported in their post-hospital recovery and staff have been pleased with the technology.