Three approved FPS innovation projects to elevate transmural care in Belgium.

At Remecare, we have one goal in mind: elevating transmural care in Belgium. As the proud technological partner of numerous hospitals, we submitted three innovative projects to the Federal Public Service (FPS) for Health earlier this year, and all of them were approved!

Innovative Home Hospitalization in a Digital Age

One of these projects is "Innovative Home Hospitalization in a Digital Age." In this project, we are digitizing the transmural care pathway for intravenous antibiotics (OPAT) and subcutaneous antitumor treatments for patients at home. This ensures seamless communication between patients, hospitals, and primary care providers, with real-time exchange of vital parameters and symptoms. This way, we guarantee optimal care, even outside the hospital environment!

In this project, we collaborate with:

OLV Hospital Aalst, Jan Yperman Hospital, ASZ Aalst, AZ Maria Middelares, and AZ Sint-Vincentius Deinze as treating hospitals, along with Wit-Gele Kruis East Flanders, Wit-Gele Kruis West Flanders, ZorgConnect, Mederi, and i-mens as primary care providers.

OPAT

Some infections, such as those affecting bones, joints, heart valves, or the prostate, require long-term intravenous (IV) antibiotics. Thanks to OPAT (Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy) as a Remecare care pathway, these treatments can be safely and effectively continued at home. This allows patients to quickly resume their daily activities. With Remecare’s technology, the OPAT program is efficiently organized, offering numerous benefits to the treating physician. Remecare simplifies several administrative tasks (such as activities related to the discharge of an OPAT patient and communication with primary care providers) and is seamlessly integrated into existing EHR software. Moreover, the Remecare care pathway ensures that hospital-quality care continues at the patient's home. Finally, Remecare is equipped with built-in technology that allows hospital staff to monitor OPAT patients at scale without creating additional workload.

Subcutaneous Anti-tumor Treatments

Chemotherapy is usually administered in the hospital. However, some forms of treatment allow anti-tumor medication to be administered at home. This increases patient comfort and satisfaction during the treatment while also enhancing the efficiency of the oncological day hospital. Specifically, the home nurse assesses the patient’s condition both one day before and on the day of the planned administration. If everything is in order, the medication is administered. If home administration cannot proceed, the treating physician decides how to continue the therapy, and the hospital’s oncology nurse contacts the patient and home nurse to discuss the next steps. The Remecare transmural care pathway makes communication between the patient, home nurse, and oncology hospital staff.

TOTeM (Transmural Care for Surgical Patients with Telemonitoring Support)

Thanks to improved surgical techniques, patients can go home earlier after surgery, but complications are still possible. These need to be detected promptly [SR4] so that the appropriate caregiver can take action. TOTeM aims to discharge surgical patients as early as medically possible, with high-quality and specialized follow-up at home. This offers the advantage of allowing patients to recover in a familiar environment and to be more involved in the recovery process. For hospitals, it optimizes bed occupancy and reduces the social cost of care. With support from the Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, several TOTeM projects are being piloted in six hospitals (AZ Sint-Blasius, Jan Yperman Hospital, AZ Oostende, AZ Sint-Maarten, Jessa Hospital, and Vitaz) for specific types of surgery: colon, bariatric, kidneys, bladder, prostate, pancreatic, and anti-reflux surgery.

Role of Remecare

In the TOTeM project, Remecare handles digitizing the various transmural care pathways and acts as a central hub between the patient, who records their symptoms and vital parameters, the home nursing organizations (Mederi and Wit-Gele Kruis), the care center (Z-plus), and the different hospitals. Moreover, as a certified Class IIa medical device, Remecare can detect abnormal recordings. Through structured data exchange between various healthcare professionals, prompt interventions can be made if the patient's condition deteriorates. This improves the patient's experience and enhances the effectiveness and safety of postoperative care. To facilitate this data exchange, we collaborate with NexuzHealth and Dedalus.

HEARTwise

The HEARTwise project aims to improve (remote) patient monitoring using the Early Warning Score (EWS), both inside and outside the walls of the Jan Yperman, AZ Sint-Andries, AZ West, and UZA hospitals. HEARTwise stands for Hospital and Home Early Warning AI-Refined Triage with Wearables and Instruments for Smart Evaluation. This involves wearables, AI, and other innovative tools to improve the monitoring of the Early Warning Score based on parameters such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation, and consciousness.

Role of Remecare

In the HEARTwise project, Remecare ensures that patients can go home earlier with hospital follow-up through an EWS care pathway. Remecare integrates various parameters from Byteflies wearables with manual recordings by the patient and home nurses, visualizing them on an intuitive dashboard. This (semi-)continuous telemonitoring via wearables and Remecare’s digital patient platform optimally supports the work of care teams. A similar EWS care pathway and dashboard will also be used to improve intra-mural follow-up. Finally, under the guidance of EdenceHealth, artificial intelligence will also be used to predict patient deterioration more quickly and provide insights into potential options for allowing patients to go home sooner after hospital admission.