IT vendor Salesforce is rolling out new healthcare tools designed to help healthcare and life sciences organizations meet their patients, members and customers where they are to deliver the right care, at the right time, from anywhere.

These new tools, the company said, deliver stronger relationships across healthcare and life sciences organizations from anywhere, and by tapping into these innovations, organizations can streamline operations and, ultimately, drive better health outcomes.

In addition to already available offerings supporting access to care, scheduling and assessments, patient and member outreach, care coordination, and patient services, Salesforce is rolling out:

• Remote Patient Exception Monitoring for Health Cloud. This surfaces data and insights from connected devices directly within a single dashboard to help providers and care coordinators create a personalized connection with patients to better monitor health conditions, all without ever having to step foot into a provider's office.
• Intelligent Appointment Management for Health Cloud. This maximizes appointment scheduling efficiency by suggesting the right appointment for the patient at the right time – whether at home or in the office – to help reduce no-shows, administrative costs and time spent on calls with a scheduler.
• Medication Management for Health Cloud. This helps health systems, pharmacies, small practices, retail outlets and others manage medication lists, regardless of where care is accessed.

"For years, the healthcare system has struggled to catch up with the innovation we were seeing across other industries, but the pandemic forced us to accelerate digital transformation and provide the healthcare system with digital-first and always-on patient-focused solutions," said Kevin Riley, senior vice president and general manager of healthcare and life sciences at Salesforce.

"These new care from anywhere innovations ensure that we continue this digital transformation in healthcare and empower providers, payers, care coordinators and pharmaceutical companies to deliver care for patients wherever they are," he added.

Salesforce is in HIMSS21 booth 2216.

Vivify Health's remote care enhancements

On another virtual care front, Vivify Health, developer of a connected care platform for remote patient care, has announced two new enhancements to its remote care platform.

The Vivify platform now has the capabilities to:

• Automate Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes for chronic care management (CCM), remote patient monitoring (RPM) and principal care management (PCM). This can integrate with Epic's EHR.
• Enable providers to schedule video visits.

With the new version, Vivify's remote care platform is significantly more interoperable with EHRs, medical devices and other systems, the company said.

In the past, reimbursement for telehealth often was limited by originating site and geographical location. Since RPM is not considered a telehealth service, it did not face those restrictions. During the COVID-19 public health emergency, however, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made substantive changes to its telehealth and RPM billing and reimbursement policies that for some providers were complex and difficult to understand.

The groups of telehealth and RPM CPT codes that will be automated include:

• CCM codes for two or more conditions.
• Remote physiologic monitoring codes.
• Principal care management codes for a single chronic condition.
• Virtual check-ins by healthcare professionals.
• Transitional care management and behavioral health codes.
• Consolidations of consent for all services.
• Monthly telehealth ESRD-related dialysis clinical assessments.
• Opioid and substance use disorders.

"It is vitally important that providers take advantage of new reimbursement opportunities for telehealth and RPM to guard against CMS removing them in the future due to a lack of utilization and interest," said Eric Rock, founder and CEO of Vivify Health. "Our enhancement gives providers the capability to leverage the rewarding reimbursement opportunities CMS affords them."

Vivify combines virtual visits, remote care and chronic care management for both physical and mental health. The platform was designed to help patients who need assistance pre- and post-discharge. Patients simply touch a button on their tablet and they can talk to someone live.

Another new product enhancement enables clinicians to schedule video visits, which is in addition to existing on-demand "now" visits. Clinicians can either schedule or conduct "now" on-demand calls.

Vivify Health is in HIMSS21 booth 4217.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.