The ongoing difficulties of the coronavirus infection 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are disproportionately hitting practice sufferers with chronic medical diseases, including high-risk patients and communities (such as the elderly and immune-compromised). Sufferers taking a specialization medicine often rely on improved clinical services to ensure the safe use of medication and optimize healing results.
As some limitations to stop the range of COVID-19 are being eased, protecting sufferers’ access to safe and efficient medications is essential to continued care.
The health care practice has the chance to use its existing patient-centric way in new ways to meet the current requirements of specialization subjects during this evolving time. From administering liquid services in patients’ homes to growing telehealth and virtual approach, flexibility in how patients receive the care they need will help keep people secure and follower to therapy during and after the break.
Personal Results
Assuring sufferers continue receiving life-sustaining liquids traditionally given in the hospital or hospital clinic environments is of the utmost quality. In-home infusions have been a safe and trustworthy way to meet clinical needs while decreasing public exposure opportunities.
Home strain services deliver patient safety, comfort, and positive clinical results while facilitating service and reducing travel time to care sites. In fact, many sufferers prefer home infusion, reporting higher levels of physical and mental wellbeing, and less separation of family and personal obligations.
Study shows that a home background for infusion services can help prevent diseases. While receiving therapy in a hospital setting, about 3% of people acquire an epidemic.
One research showed that sufferers given intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatments at home had lower rates of pneumonitis and bronchitis than those handled in a hospital outpatient infusion center. On top of the clinical advantages, at-home access delivers meaningful cost savings for sufferers and health systems.
The Research on High-Risk Patients
Optum research shows that moving sufferers out of the hospital to other care sites—such as the home, infusion hospitals, and the physician’s office—can help lower pharmaceutical and medicine costs by up to 52% and saves up to $37,000 in savings per case depending on disease state and site of care.
While leveraging an at-home model for liquid therapies, nurses and patients must ensure they are following best practice guidelines to prevent illness to the novel coronavirus. Personal emergency equipment (PPE) such as masks and disinfecting numbers must be given to nurses when caring for sufferers suspected of, or diagnosed with, COVID-19.
But this action is not enough, as face masks are advised to be worn by nurses and sufferers in all other visit scenarios to decrease the risk of asymptomatic presentation. These precautions, along with new guidance such as frequent handwashing and support from the CDC, promote the safety of the sufferer and nurse.
One Optum patient has managed his chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), a neurological disorder that targets the body’s nerves, with IVIG therapy for five years. Given his familiarity with home infusion treatment, when COVID-19 shut down his home state of Florida, he was able to contact his Optum home health nurse to immediately receive a plan of action and consider his safety interests—managing a rare complication such as CIDP put him in the high-risk patients category.
The Needed Treatment
The Optum home health nurse wears PPE when she visits twice a week for his home infusions, and double pick things and the areas to preserve the inpatient and herself. They remain in close touch with any unusual signs to ensure they feel safe and pleased with coming into the home to provide the needed treatment.
While physical access to pharmacies and doctor offices may have shifted, Optum remains focused on continued access to medications and care to ensure that high-risk patients can quickly obtain their prescriptions and effectively manage their chronic conditions. This includes policies that extend prior authorizations on certain medications or alert patients of medication home delivery options, so they don’t have to leave their home.
The Educational Content
Moreover, it is also necessary to continue controlling the medicine supply chain to secure sufficient amounts of essential prescriptions and use anticipatory analysis to decide if, and when, the drugstore needs to expand to keep the constant supply.
Along with any following medical treatments, specialty apothecaries can also consult sufferers on medication-specific questions, concerns, and options. A virtual visit streamlines the sharing of data and allows patients and their caregivers to access informational and educational content more quickly.
The COVID-19 pandemic has left many asking for data about their medication access, safe choices for getting refills and needed infusions, and telehealth presents. During a time like this, the quality of our work and our ability to serve inpatients and discuss the needs of the healthcare system is more clearly in focus.
As part of UnitedHealth Group, Optum Specialty and Infusion Pharmacy remain focused on establishing continuity of care and making more robust drugstore services to those we serve. As sufferers, customers, and communities need our expertise and abilities more than ever. We are acting quickly and designed to ensure we continue to provide safe and appropriate access to medications and drugstore care services.
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