How Hospitals Can Save Money Using Hippo Virtual Care
The COVID-19 pandemic led to drastic decreases in health spending over the last year as patients and providers were forced to delay routine care – leaving many hospital systems with significant revenue deficits. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that many hospitals will continue to face declining revenue amidst the lingering economic crisis. In these uncertain times, Hippo Virtual Care can help decrease hospitals’ overall costs, while simultaneously increasing revenue potential.
Seamless integration across hospital systems
Virtual care is quickly becoming a part of routine medical life and is embraced across medical specialties. The start-up costs of integrating a new system can be daunting though. Systems must be customizable enough to fit with existing practices, quick to deploy, with a focus on functionality and effectiveness, all while fitting budgetary requirements. Ongoing training, system updates, and outdated technology can quickly drive up the cost of virtual care. That’s why it’s essential to consider usability from the outset.
Hippo’s Virtual Care platform featuring the latest in wearable computing for clinicians adds seamless integration into clinical workflow across the Health System continuum. Our platform is quick to deploy, integrates easily with existing systems, and is scalable and future-proof.
Early intervention
A study by the University of Texas demonstrated that first responders using point-of-care telehealth solutions in collaboration with emergency physicians saved an average of $223 per incident by reducing the need for patient transport. Early intervention with a life-saving drug, treatment, or medical preparation not only improves costs, it also helps save lives.
Hippo’s platform was designed for clinicians, by clinicians to perform where you need it most. Our clinical-grade headset and software are voice-activated and hands free, allowing emergency responders to care for patients in chaotic situations all while providing high-quality video streaming back to the ED for faster triage care.
A 200-bed hospital with annual 5,000 EMT patients, could save $1.1 million in inappropriate ER costs.
Decrease ER wait times
A study from the University of South Carolina found that even a 10-minute delay in emergency care can increase a hospital’s average cost by 6%. This equates to hundreds of dollars in ER and inpatient costs for each ER treatment delay.
Virtual care eliminates delays in specialist care and allows patients immediate access via remote point-of-care. Specialists can quickly respond using a remote PC or smartphone to assess and guide patient care. ER physicians and nurses can contact specialists and provide a real-time view of the patient with Hippo’s voice-activated headset, saving precious time, increasing patient satisfaction, and improving productivity while decreasing costs.
A 200-bed hospital with 40,000 annual ER visits and a 30% emergency patient treatment delay rate could save $2.7 million annually.
Reduce inpatient stays
A 2019 study by the Stanford School of Medicine found that 15% of inpatients have extended hospital stays, averaging 1.8 days, due to delays in specialist consultations – increasing costs by $2,600 per stay. Reducing these delays by half could save a 200-bed hospital more than $7 million every year.
By employing Hippo Virtual Care, teams can connect virtually at the patient’s bedside to review a diagnosis and agree to a care plan. Urgent situations can be addressed by a nurse receiving expert guidance from a specialist via a virtual care headset, allowing real-time collaboration and immediate responses to any changes in a patient’s condition. These care improvements can reduce delays in patient discharge and positively impact service levels and productivity.
A 200-bed hospital that cut their extended patient stays in half could save $6.2 million annually in inpatient costs.
Improvements in efficiency can translate to better margins
Most surgical units perform anesthesia with CRNAs supervised by an anesthesiologist. The use of voice-activated headsets can allow an anesthesiologist to improve their productivity and manage more CRNAs by eliminating the constant rounding to supervise from room to room. Remote consultations can also reduce travel time between operating rooms and other procedural areas. Improving anesthesiologists’ productivity by just 15% can reduce operating room delays, saving an average of $140,000 annually per specialist.
The current in-person monitoring set-up limits anesthesiologists to monitoring four CRNAs; with Hippo Virtual Care, they could manage 5-6. Remote technology reduces the need for physical supervision and allows them to focus on urgent and complex procedures, while still supervising a full complement of CRNAs.
Overall, a 200-bed hospital that implemented Hippo Virtual care in EMT, ER, OR and Inpatient discharges could save more than $10 million in annual costs.
At Hippo, we are enabling healthcare providers to overcome barriers to delivering quality care while improving efficiency and workflow. Our 24/7 support and military-grade compliance and data security ensures faster triage, smarter decision making, and more collaborative working while helping reduce costs and improve operating margins for hospitals and health systems.
