Palomar Health’s mission is to heal, comfort, and promote health in the communities it serves through a reimagining of healthcare and the patient experience. Last year, Palomar announced a partnership with Get Well to do just that — we teamed up for a multi-phase partnership that officially launched last month and is already meeting patient expectations.

Each component of the program will be seamlessly integrated into specific Palomar Health service lines, “starting from home to the hospital then back at home, with the goal of delivering personalized care for every patient and ensuring every patient is healing, receiving education and feeling supported during their medical journey.”

The first phase, which has been live for just over a month, involved implementation of GetWell Loop, Get Well’s digital care management solution. Palomar Health patients will be able to engage with GetWell Loop and remain connected with their physicians through virtual check-ins. 

Automating patient education to improve outcomes  

Receiving care at a hospital, regardless of whether it’s an elective procedure or an emergency, involves many steps and typically a great deal of information for the patient. And in far too many cases, that information is overwhelming and unclear. The goal of this first phase is to improve post-procedure or postoperative outcomes by providing patients and their families with the right information at the right time to inform them of valuable information and resources throughout their healthcare journey, such as educational guides, pre-operative information, prescription information, follow-up appointment schedules, and more. 

Palomar Health is using GetWell Loop for two service lines — cardiology and bariatrics. GetWell Loop is used for patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement, also known as TAVR or transcatheter aortic valve implantation — a procedure to treat aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve.

While TAVR is a minimally invasive procedure and has become a common way to replace the aortic valve, like most surgical procedures — especially those involving the heart — patients are required to follow both pre- and post-procedure care routines. Patients must monitor vital signs, like temperature and blood pressure, as well as their weight, and they must monitor and care for the incision, adhere to medication instructions, and then return for follow-up care. GetWell Loop helps prepare patients before their procedure and then provides post-procedure information and virtual check-ins and digital care management to ensure the best possible outcome.

GetWell Loop is also being used for Palomar Health’s bariatrics service line for procedure prep and post-operative care for patients undergoing a gastric sleeve procedure. The timeline to prepare for any weight-loss surgery typically starts six months to a year ahead of the procedure, and gastric sleeve surgery is no different. Through GetWell Loop, patients are enrolled six to eight months ahead of the surgery to guide them through their prep, which includes diet and other lifestyle changes. Because the length of prep is so long, Palomar hopes that the guided care plan through GetWell Loop will help Palomar with meeting patient expectations and help patients stay engaged in their surgery prep. More engagement patients will be less likely to cancel their surgery — a costly challenge for any hospital. 

Early results 

Just over a month since launching the digital care plan Loops in March, Palomar has seen some early positive results. Since go-live within Palomar Health’s Weight Management service line, 100% of the enrolled patients have activated their accounts and engaged with the platform. And again, 100% of those patients have said they would be extremely likely to recommend their provider to a friend or family member. These early results will lead to an overall decrease in last-minute rescheduled or canceled surgeries, ultimately leading to a higher patient success rate post surgery.  

In Palomar’s Cardiovascular service line, more than 50% of enrolled patients have activated their accounts prior to a TAVR procedure. This group has also seen 100% of their activated patients stating they’d recommend their provider to a friend or family member.  

What’s next

Earlier this month, Palomar Health implemented GetWell Inpatient, which includes an inpatient mobile experience, post-discharge support, and an on-site Get Well Navigator to improve the patient experience and workflow automation for staff. Future implementations will further focus on meeting patient expectations and feature a consumer-centric Emergency Department experience with the following components:

• While waiting to be seen the patient will have access to onboarding education, along with movies, health education videos, and hospital information to explore
• If admitted to the ED, the patient will have access to view medication information, see their care team, and watch education assigned to them, as well as prepare for discharge
• Deploy surveys that could better capture patient clinical, mental health and social needs while waiting to be seen

Later this year, Palomar will launch a health equity program — starting with maternal health — designed to improve racial disparities by building community trust and screening for and navigating social determinants of health and mental health needs. Stay tuned to hear the rest of their journey!

Learn more about GetWell Loop and schedule a demo to get started today!