Conversa’s Automated Virtual Health Platform Helping to Track COVID-19 Vaccine Effects on Frontline Healthcare Workers
Health systems leverage Conversa’s COVID-19 Health programs to educate providers and patients, and provide daily check-ins to track symptoms and monitor side effects after vaccinations
Conversa Health, an automated virtual care and triage platform, has expanded its suite of COVID-19 programs with tools to help the vaccine effort.
Conversa has partnered with BioIntelliSense to monitor healthcare workers at UCHealth in Colorado before and after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations. UCHealth physicians, nurses and other front-line staff members wear BioIntelliSense’s BioButton medical device two days before and seven days after vaccination. The BioButton continuously monitors temperature, respiratory rate and heart rate at rest. Conversa collects information from the BioButton and integrates the vital signs data with insights from a daily interactive vaccination health survey developed by Conversa.
“Automated vaccine monitoring for our frontline healthcare workers is an important step toward scaling the program for the larger population, particularly vulnerable patient populations and seniors in long-term care environments,” said Dr. Richard Zane, UCHealth chief innovation officer and professor and chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We are working closely with partners like Conversa and BioIntelliSense to navigate the ever-changing healthcare landscape and transform the way patients receive care.”
Vaccine education, tracking and screening
Conversa also is assisting health systems across the country with the challenge of vaccinating millions of patients. This effort begins with educating patients on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Patients want to know when they will be eligible to receive vaccines and what their experience will be like, including potential side effects. And patients need an easy way to set up vaccine appointments and get reminders to follow through on their visits. Health systems also want to monitor potential side effects, both to ensure patients get needed follow-up care and to report any side effects to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“With millions of people needing to be vaccinated, we cannot have a manual, paper process to track who received a vaccine and who experienced side effects,” said Dr. Nick Patel, chief digital officer at Prisma Health, an 18-hospital system serving South Carolina. “We have to automate this process to track information accurately and at scale. With Conversa, we will be able to do that for the 1.2 million patients that Prisma Health serves annually. Digital tracking also allows us to provide vaccinated individuals with a digital badge for entering an airplane, a public building or an entertainment venue. That will be a key to allowing life to return to something close to pre-COVID normal.”
Conversa’s vaccine efforts reinforce its commitment to help the industry during this time: Conversa was one of the first digital health companies to respond last year with a suite of COVID-19 Virtual Care Programs, helping hospitals increase care delivery capacity by automating the outreach to, and monitoring of, vulnerable patient and employee populations. Innovative organizations like UCSF Health, Northwell, UNC Health, Prisma Health, SCL Health and University Hospitals are using Conversa to provide symptom checking and triage, provide check-ins with quarantined patients, deliver lab results and screen employees, patients and visitors. These programs have been made available to millions of patients and have been used by hundreds of thousands of individuals every day. Northwell Health recently added Conversa HealthCheckTM, a daily screening application for employees, students and visitors, to its work with employers to create and maintain a safe environment.
“To get to the other side of the pandemic, we need to address concerns and allay fears so people get the vaccines. We also need to continue to educate around masking, distancing and screening until enough people are vaccinated. Automated virtual care programs deliver personalized, evidence-based guidance at scale,” said Conversa CEO Murray Brozinsky. “Conversa is helping health systems across the country improve health education, expand patient access, manage system capacity, and reduce cost of care.”
Conversa continues to enable health systems to virtually engage, monitor and manage patients more effectively and efficiently than ever before—for chronic care, acute discharge, perioperative, oncology, OBGYN, prevention and wellness, and more. Conversa’s automated virtual care platform engages patients at high frequency and scale, triaging to higher touch/cost care venues when necessary, improving care coordination, reducing hospital readmissions, and increasing patient adherence to treatment plans. Recently, the UCSF Digital Health Awards named Conversa “Best Remote Diagnostics Company” for 2020.
To learn more about Conversa’s proven Automated Virtual Care platform and its easy-to-launch COVID-19 programs, please visit conversahealth.com.
