This week, two clinicians discuss the benefits they are seeing from utilizing Cadence’s technology and platform. First up, you will hear from Dr. Ailisa Smith from FryeCare Generations Family in Hickory, North Carolina, who describes the various benefits she is seeing, including reducing her workload and having a "second set of eyes" to help monitor her heart failure patients and patients with type 2 diabetes. Then, you will hear from Twilla Walker, who is a Nurse Practitioner at FryeCare Cardiology, who also affirms the positive impact she is experiencing working with Cadence on her heart failure patients.
This episode features interviews with Dr. Alisia Smith and FNP Twilla Walker. Their interviews focus on each clinician's experience with Cadence and the positive impact that Cadence's platform and technology solution is having on their patients.
For more information on Cadence, visit https://www.cadence.care/
Introduction
Welcome to Cadence Conversations where we're talking with prominent physicians, healthcare leaders and tech entrepreneurs about their experiences driving innovation and progress.
This week, we had the chance to sit down with two clinicians who are using Cadence with their patients. We wanted to learn more about how our Remote Patient Intervention solution is benefiting them, as well as benefitting their patients.
First up, you will hear from Dr. Ailisa Smith from FryeCare Generations Family in Hickory, North Carolina.
Dr. Smith started using Cadence earlier this year. She will tell you more about the great experience she's had working with Cadence's team and utilizing our technology.
If you're a clinician interested in learning more about Cadence's RPM program or considering using our technology with your own patients, you won't want to miss this conversation.
So let's get to this week's Cadence Conversation.
Ailisa Smith
Hi, everybody. My name is Dr. Ailisa Smith. I work at FryeCare Generations in Hickory, North Carolina.
I've been in family practice now for 14 years and in accordance with that, I have a very aging patient population. So as far as trying to make sure that they are taken care of in the best possible manner, it's a struggle sometimes with the demand to get patients in here and make sure that their blood pressure is under control and their diabetes is under control every 3 to 4 months.
And as far as trying to get patients in the door, we have a difficult time, often even getting phone calls returned to patients. And in a system where there's phone trees and sometimes there's difficulty getting through and also just my schedule availability, it's a real struggle this day and time to make sure that I'm doing the best I can for my patients and that they are actually happy with their care.
Cadence was first presented to us earlier this year, and it was presented to us as a remote patient monitoring system for our aging patients, our Medicare population, monitoring of blood pressure, congestive heart failure patients. And this was a way that we would be able to see vital signs on our patients and have outreach to those patients if there were issues.
To me, honestly, when it was presented, it was a no brainer. With my aging patient population, the ability to be able to have a peek into their lives at home and to have somebody that I communicate with through our EMR who is actually reaching out to these patients when there is an issue, it saves my office staff time, it saves me time.
I'm communicated with about the things that are happening to my patients. And my patients could feel like they were getting taken care of at home even when they were not inside my office. But they knew that this person that was reaching out to them was in contact with me. So it wasn't somebody in place of me. It was somebody who was working with me to take care of them.
I'm very happy with Cadence.
The patients feel like they're got an extra pair of eyes besides mine.
And so with this, if a patient wakes up and takes their blood pressure and it's elevated, that triggers a phone call from a nurse practitioner who works with me to talk to the patient and figure out what needs to be done.
Enrollment with Cadence has been so simple. I will see a patient and maybe in the last 2 minutes of the encounter, if I feel they're appropriate for the program, I'll give them a little snippet of what Cadence is and how the nurse practitioner works with me to help us make sure that their blood pressure is under control or their blood sugars.
From my standpoint. I'm moving on. I'm seeing patients. I simply deliver them to the enrollment and my appointment with them is done.
With cadence on board, I feel like my patients are being triaged in a way that I wasn't able to do before. I could have patients present to the E.R. with elevated blood pressures. And I had no idea, unfortunately, what was going on until I got the the note from the E.R. and with Cadence, these folks are being captured before they end up presenting to the E.R., because we're seeing those elevated blood pressures and we're able to get a phone call out to them.
We're able to capture that in that moment and keep that patient from having to go to the E.R. unnecessarily.
I can honestly say that Cadence has not created any extra work for me. It has decreased my work. It has decreased phone calls that are coming into my office, phone messages that we're having to take off for patients that are having issues with blood pressure or I'm sure soon to come, blood sugars.
I honestly, throughout the COVID pandemic, we've been short staffed and it was not infrequent that I was sitting at our triage phone and honestly taking messages off that triage phone at the end of my workday.
Those are greatly decreased because we're not getting phone calls coming in from some of these concerned patients. So it has certainly reduced my workload.
Patients sometimes ask me if somebody else is going to be managing their care through cadence. And my answer to them is always absolutely not. I work in conjunction with the nurse practitioner and any changes that are made in their blood pressure regimen or their diabetic regimen are with my approval.
If there are issues where things need to be escalated I'm always contacted. So we are certainly kept up to date on the changes that are made and we always have the ability when we are given notification of the changes, to reach out to the patient on our own if we so choose. So I still feel like I am 100% in control of my patients’ care.
With Cadence on board, I feel like my patients are being triaged in a way that I wasn't able to do before. I could have patients present to the E.R. with elevated blood pressures. And I had no idea, unfortunately, what was going on until I got the the note from the E.R. and with Cadence, these folks are being captured before they end up presenting to the E.R., because we're seeing those elevated blood pressures and we're able to get a phone call out to them.
People often ask me what I tell my patients and how I get them on board with Cadence.
So when I've got folks in my office that have a multitude of health problems, especially my aging patient population, my pitch is let me let you talk to our enroll or about cadence.
This is a remote monitoring system that allows me to keep a closer eye on you when you are not in my office. It gives me a weekly account of your weight and your blood pressures and your blood sugars, if so needed, and I see these things every week, and if there's an issue, you get a phone call from somebody who works directly with me.
And if we need to adjust something, it doesn't mean you have to try to call me and get through my office and leave a message and have an appointment. You have somebody that's going to reach out to you if there's an issue, and she will let me know that she's reaching out to you. So I make sure that I emphasize the fact that there is contact with me throughout this process.
I have had colleagues ask me about Cadence and my best advice to them is give it a try. I certainly did and I've had nothing but good experiences with Cadence.
The enrollers are wonderful at teaching the patients. I think people really just need to have an open mind and give it a try, and after only a few weeks, they'll probably see the benefit from the standpoint of patient care.
And also the decrease in and probably triage and phone calls that they're getting from folks that is being handled by Cadence.
Thank you Dr. Smith, for sharing your experience and describing all the positive benefits you are experiencing from working with Cadence.
Next up, you will hear from Twilla Walker, a nurse practitioner who works at FryeCare Cardiology, also in Hickory, North Carolina.
Twilla has been working with Cadence since February and also had nothing but positive things to share about her experience. Take a listen.
Twilla Walker
Hi there, everyone. My name is Twilla Walker. I'm a nurse practitioner here at FryeCare Cardiology.
My role here is to help manage our heart failure patients. They do struggle with their managing their condition so we do have to help them learn about their medications, learn how to manage their self at home.
It is hard to keep up with every day workload, and I'll often have to get phone calls and help them over the phone with their blood pressures and extra weight that they might put on and then questions about their medications.
I've been working with patients with Cadence since about February.
The experience I have here with Cadence has been wonderful.
The enrollment process is very easy. I can give a brief description to the patient about what's going to take place. And then the Cadence team is right there and take it away all out of my hands.
I can communicate with the team, the Cadence team very easily. They notify me if there are issues with their blood pressure medications or their any other heart failure medications, or if we need to get labs done and they're actually able to order that for me and that takes a load off me.
I get really good feedback from the patients knowing that they can be monitored remotely from home.
They also feel like they have an accountability because they know that they're going to need to be taking their medications because somebody is watching them, which is also a win win for all of us, because they're going to be able to stay of the hospital, hopefully, and come to the office less frequently.
I remember a specific time when a patient had a very low blood pressure and they didn't want to have to go to the hospital just for very low blood pressure because they were feeling okay, but basically feeling pretty good but not great. And the nurse at Cadence discontinued one of the medications for a short time, and then she notified me that that's what they did. And we were able to keep them from having to go to the emergency room.
I feel more at ease because between the Cadence team and I, we can titrate these medications that they need towards guideline directed medical therapy and that has me rest because I know that sometimes there are going to be side effects and worse problems when you are initiating these medications, but now they're being watched.
I tell my patients that this is going to benefit them because they're going to be monitored and they're going to know how to deal with the blood pressure reading that they might get that day if it's abnormal, then they're going to say, well, we can call cadence, you know, instead of, well, what do I do with this?
So I think is very helpful. That's what I usually tell them, that it's definitely going to benefit them. And it helps me too to kind of know that they're not all sounds are being monitored closely.
I would tell my colleagues that it's worth checking out, Cadence is worth checking out. It's been a win win for me. It's been a win win for my patients. It's great for everybody.
Cadence has ease, some of those clinical burdens by letting me not have to take as many phone calls and they can refill prescriptions. That keeps me from having to stop and do that. And, you know, I might be taking some of my lunch break just to do all that usually. But this kind of freed me up from that. And there was that fear that I thought maybe Cadence would take over my visits. But no, at the end of the day, I'm really the eyes and ears and the face to face visit that is necessary to ultimately keep that patient out of the hospital.
Thanks again to Ailisa and Twilla for sharing their experiences with us
If you're a clinician who's thinking about using Cadence with your own patients, hopefully this conversation gave you some helpful insights about the benefits you can expect personally, as well as for your patients.
If you're interested in learning more information about Cadence and how to get involved, visit Cadence.care and please get in touch with our team.
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At Cadence, we believe that everyone deserves to receive the best care possible and we won't stop working until that vision becomes reality.