As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for telehealth services surged. This was accompanied by increased demand for innovative remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions that could streamline the patient and provider experience while ensuring Veterans received the same quality of care at home that they would inside the walls of their VA medical center. Given her involvement with The Initiative to End Diabetic Limb Loss at VA and with a history of utilizing telehealth modalities in her research and clinical care, Dr. Lindsay Riegler recognized the need for clinician workload capture for successful national scaling of remote temperature monitoring and sought VISN 10 pilot approval for Store and Forward workload capture, which would do just that. 

 

Following a successful pilot, Dr. Riegler worked with the VHA Office of Connected Care’s Asynchronous Telehealth Lead, Sara DeRycke, to establish the telehealth implementation guidelines to ensure enterprise-wide implementation of new RPM stop codes. These changes ensured that the correct procedures and incentives were in place as telehealth utilization boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of these efforts, clinicians are experiencing more streamlined processes that enable them to seamlessly integrate RPM into patient care, which is critical at a time when provider burnout is at an all time high.

 

Dr. Riegler’s efforts have paved the way for the smooth integration of future remote patient monitoring solutions that improve Veterans’ access to care, reduce admission rates, and improve Veteran experiences with their VA providers. Remote patient monitoring solutions enable the monitoring of patients outside of conventional clinical settings such as hospitals or outpatient clinics.Due in part to Dr. Reigler’s efforts, VA is developing a scalable and sustainable framework that will guide the consumption and establish protocols to enroll Veterans in the telehealth and RPM services that they need. She will continue her efforts to move the enterprise forward in a way that keeps VA competitive with private industry to ensure both providers and Veterans have the infrastructure, resources, policy and guidance necessary to move technology-based healthcare solutions forward.