What is Chronic Care Management?

Six in 10 adults in the United States have a chronic condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Four in 10 have two or more. 

Around 80 percent of older adults have at least one chronic condition and 77 percent have a minimum of two, reports the National Council on Aging (NCOA). Four chronic conditions cause around two-thirds of all deaths every year. These are: 

• Cancer
• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Stroke

Chronic conditions are long-lasting conditions that you can typically control, but not cure. They last a year or more, and limit activities of daily living and/or require ongoing medical attention. And, while most people have more than one chronic disease, the healthcare system is mainly organized for providing care on a condition-by-condition basis, rather than a multiple-disease umbrella.

Therefore, when patients see multiple specialists, it escalates the opportunity for confusion. A common example is multiple medication use where using one could contraindicate the use of another. This can all lead to fragmented care. Often, the missing link is care coordination. 

This is why chronic care management (CCM) is so important.

Definition of Chronic Care Management 

Basically, CCM encompasses any care healthcare professionals provide to patients with chronic health conditions like:

• Diabetes
• Fibromyalgia
• Lupus
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Multiple Sclerosis
• High Blood Pressure
• Lung Disease

CCM is designed for helping you and your patients with multiple chronic conditions manage their healthcare. It’s based on their individual needs.

The best part of CCM is you can perform it virtually where you provide non-face-to-face patient care between office visits to ensure you’re providing the best overall quality of care. When your patients visit the hospital or your office, they’re exposed to unnecessary pathogens which can make things worse.

You can perform simple things easily over “Tele-visits” or over the phone such as: 

• Reviewing lab results
• Asking and answering questions
• Reducing your patient load on a daily basis

One very effective telemedicine tool is Steth IO®. Steth IO Health’s distinctive form factor works great for home use which makes it an efficient telemedicine platform. It allows you to perform remote patient examination and monitoring for patients at home. Patient exams can provide you with valuable insight you can use for clinical decision making. It helps improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Chronic Care Management Diseases: Cardiovascular Diseases (CHF, Angina, CAD), Asthma, COPD, and Hypertension

Chronic care management diseases Steth IO can help with include:

• Cardiovascular Disease (keyword) (CHF, Angina, CAD)
• Asthma
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Hypertension

For instance, common heart issues that you can diagnose with Steth IO are early systolic, diastolic, and holosystolic murmurs, and third and fourth heart sound. Common lung issues that you can diagnose with Steth IO are wheezing and crackles.

Steth IO offers:

1. Real-Time Visualization

The Steth IO device (keyword) enables real-time visualization of the lung and heart sounds while auscultation which helps improve your confidence in diagnosing abnormalities when you compare it to audio auscultation alone. You can record lung or heart sounds on a computer connected through Bluetooth to the Steth IO. You can then visually play these sounds back at a later time.

2. Acoustic Quality

Frequency spectra of the sounds of the heart are concentrated under 400 Hz and could extend up to 800 Hz. Lung sounds peak below 100 Hz generally and could extend up to 2000 Hz. The stethoscope-design is for amplifying these frequency ranges while reducing the amplitude of background noise. To avoid unwanted audio artifacts, the frequency response needs to be smooth across the whole spectrum.

You’ll also find Steth IO provides a smoother frequency response — between 140 and 800 Hz. User-testing found Steth IO doesn’t give off higher-frequency background noise and it has a more “natural timbre”, when compared with traditional stethoscopes, as well as similar acoustic qualities.

3. Usability

Steth IO provides numerous usability functions for making the physical exam experience better. The lung and heart sounds Steth IO collects by default are recorded and digitized. You can then choose to annotate and save them to share the sounds with professionals with just one or two easy clicks.

4. Data Security Controls

The Steth IO device uses various different techniques and tools for ensuring all captured data by the stethoscope is maintained securely. Security features are separated into a couple categories:

• Those inherent in the Apple iOS
• Those built into the Steth IO application

Importance of Patient Outcomes and Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction and engagement are key players in overall patient outcomes, always, and particular when managing chronic conditions or multiple chronic diseases. 

Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is a commonly used and essential indicator to measure the quality in healthcare. It impacts clinical outcomes, medical malpractice claims and patient retention. It affects the efficient, timely and patient-centered delivery of quality healthcare. It is thus a proxy, but an extremely efficient indicator of measuring the success of physicians and hospitals.

Patient Engagement

Patient engagement is gaining recognition as a crucial part of healthcare and a vital element of safe individual-centered services. When you engage your patients, they’re better equipped to make informed decisions about their healthcare options. Additionally, you can better use resources when they’re aligned with your patients’ priorities. 

Steth IO and Patient Engagement and Patient Satisfaction

Those using health services are gaining more interest in more open, responsive and transparent healthcare systems. Patients are expecting doctors to engage them when it comes time to make healthcare decisions, however, they might vary significantly in their involvement preferences.

You’ll find the Steth IO device is a good tool to engage your patients. The visualization function of this device helps to explain the diagnosis. You can play, and replay, lung and heart sounds back to your patients and easily point out any abnormalities.

You can adjust the volume of the device, making it easy to hear murmurs you could miss with a normal stethoscope. Your patients will appreciate being able to see what you’re listening to on the iPhone screen, which includes them in the whole process. When they can hear their own heartbeat playing back to them or when they can see their own heartbeat on the screen, they’ll likely take more interest in the health of their heart.

Learn More About Steth IO Health

Steth IO commits to building technology to enhance patient outcomes and satisfaction. It enables you to provide continuous chronic care efficiently to your patients. Visit our website to learn more about Steth IO and how it can help with your chronic care management objectives. Reach out to us through our contact form, email us at Support@Stethio.com, or purchase Steth IO smartphone stethoscope here.