The initial phase of a new research program at Mayo Clinic is seeing the Minnesota health system working with Memora Health to explore new ways to extend care to postpartum patients at home. 

WHY IT MATTERS
Memora Health, which specializes in virtual care delivery and complex care management, is researching how maternal care teams at Mayo can extend engagement for postpartum patients between visits and enable more connected care experience, the company says. In turn, that helps reduce the burden on clinical and administrative teams at the health system.

The company's care programs digitize clinical workflows and patient communications through AI-backed messaging, and are designed to integrate with electronic health records, customer relationship management systems, and existing clinical and administrative workflows.

The aim is to more effectively triage patient-reported symptoms and concerns to the appropriate care team members. Text-based interventions can answer frequently asked questions, assess symptoms using natural language processing, administer postpartum depression screenings and point to educational resources.

Memora Health's AI-enabled care programs offer patients anticipatory communication as they navigate their care journeys – enabling earlier interventions and helping improve outcomes, officials say, while giving postpartum patients more proactive and ongoing support at home. 

The SMS-based programs also reduce email messaging volumes and notifications to care teams – helping simplify care navigation for providers. 

THE LARGER TREND
An estimated 98 percent of people use text messaging daily, according to Memora, meaning home-based programs such as these can help improve health equity and reduce barriers to critical postpartum care.

Remote patient monitoring and engagement strategies are fast-evolving to meet patients where they are, as more and more big-name health systems are piloting and expanding RPM and hospital at home programs.

Here's an up-close look at some of the table-stakes technology needed for emerging care-at-home and aging-in-place models.

Earlier this year, meanwhile, Mayo Clinic announced it's embarking on a 10-year data-driven collaboration with Mercy, which will see the health systems working with deidentified data for algorithm development and validation, will focus on patient outcomes and aim toward "personalized, predictive and proactive medicine."

ON THE RECORD
"Our care programs support care teams as they reimagine how to provide care to patients during and after pregnancy, enabling a close connection between the care team and patient post-discharge and everywhere in between," Memora Health CEO Manav Sevak said in a statement. "We're excited to launch this research program with Mayo Clinic to extend automated, easily accessible, and always-on postpartum care."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.