GE HealthCare and Biofourmis have announced a strategic collaboration intended to support the patient journey across the care continuum and ease transitions and care from the hospital to home. Image courtesy: Biofourmis
March 12, 2024 — GE HealthCare and Biofourmis have announced a strategic collaboration aimed at enhancing continuity of care by enabling safe, effective, and accessible care in the home to support the patient journey beyond the hospital setting. The collaboration leverages the combined expertise of two market leaders to scale and deliver innovative care-at-home solutions.
The goal of the GE HealthCare-Biofourmis collaboration, according to the written statement, is to enable more patients to go home earlier, and offer an alternative to facility-based care with the comfort and peace of mind that they are receiving high quality care at home with the intent of driving healthy behaviors in patients by managing them remotely. Moreover, insights from Biofourmis’ FDA-cleared, AI-guided algorithms can help care teams deliver efficient, personalized care at home.
“Biofourmis’ demonstrated success with care-at-home solutions will extend GE HealthCare’s current inpatient monitoring portfolio to support patient care from the hospital to home,” said Ashutosh Banerjee, GE HealthCare. He added, “Combining our companies’ demonstrated capabilities will help revolutionize the way we approach the patient care journey as well as help address current challenges faced by health systems including hospital capacity issues and clinical staffing shortages.”
Biofourmis offers care-at-home solutions to deliver and enable care both virtually and in person using its digital platform, with FDA-cleared AI-guided algorithms, clinical-grade wearable devices, in-home services orchestration technology, and nursing services, according to the written statement, which added that the solutions provide numerous dynamic care pathways with questionnaire-branching logic to provide enhanced clinical context for care teams.
“Our collaboration will enable health systems and hospitals to leverage the power of technology and data in order to shape patient-focused solutions across the care continuum, no matter where the site of care is,” said Ross Armstrong, General Manager of Biofourmis Care.
GE HealthCare planned to begin distributing Biofourmis solutions to customers in the United States starting Q1 2024. The company is participating in HIMSS 2024, the Health Information Management Systems Society Global Conference and Exhibition, taking place March 11-15 in Orlando, FL.
The statement also reported that hospital systems are experiencing increased cost of care due to workforce shortages, constrained bed capacity and increasing readmission rates.[i],[ii] Care-at-home programs, which typically include a virtual component, have proven to be effective in decreasing the length of stay and readmission rates which can result in the overall cost of care being reduced.[iii],[iv] Additionally, care-at-home programs can also support patient recovery and safety, with a potential reduction in fall risk and hospital acquired infections.[v] Patients using remote solutions in their homes are three times more likely to be satisfied with the overall care experience.[vi]
References:
[i] Fleron, A., Krishna, A., & Singhal, S. (2022, September 19). The gathering storm: The transformative impact of inflation on the healthcare sector. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/the-gatheri…
[ii] Massive Growth in Expenses and Rising Inflation Fuel Continued Financial Challenges for America’s Hospitals and Health Systems . American Hospital Association. (2022, April). https://www.aha.org/system/files/media/file/2022/04/2022-Hospital-Expen…
[iii] Levine DM, Ouchi K, Blanchfield B, Saenz A, Burke K, Paz M, Diamond K, Pu CT, Schnipper JL. Hospital-Level Care at Home for Acutely Ill Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Ann Intern Med. 2020 Jan 21;172(2):77-85. doi: 10.7326/M19-0600. Epub 2019 Dec 17. PMID: 31842232.
[iv] Leff B, Burton L, Mader SL, Naughton B, Burl J, Inouye SK, Greenough WB 3rd, Guido S, Langston C, Frick KD, Steinwachs D, Burton JR. Hospital at home: feasibility and outcomes of a program to provide hospital-level care at home for acutely ill older patients. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Dec 6;143(11):798-808. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-143-11-200512060-00008. PMID: 16330791.
[v] Telehealth: Helping hospitals deliver cost-effective care. American Hospital Association. (2016, April 22). https://www.aha.org/system/files/content/16/16telehealthissuebrief.pdf
[vi] Leff B, Burton L, Mader S, Naughton B, Burl J, Clark R, Greenough WB 3rd, Guido S, Steinwachs D, Burton JR. Satisfaction with hospital at home care. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2006 Sep;54(9):1355-63. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2006.00855.x. PMID: 16970642.
More information: www.gehealthcare.com, www.biofourmis.com
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