Care beyond Walls & Wires - Northern arizona healthcare

The landscape of the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona is both stunningly beautiful and remote. The residents have a passionate reverence for the land, which is removed from many conveniences of modern life. For Rita Yazzie, that makes caring for her father's congestive heart failure an enormous challenge. There is no running water, there is no electric. From here to the hospital, is like an hour and forty-five minutes. Some 70 miles away the Flagstaff Medical Center is bridging the gap for Rita through a pilot program called Care Beyond Walls and Wires. The Care Beyond Walls and Wires program allows us to do a just-in-time care delivery of our patients, whether they live in Flagstaff within a couple blocks of the hospital, or they live in very ultra rural areas and don't have the ability to get in. What we do is, we provide them with the cellular and wireless tools that they need to monitor their condition in the home. The system is real easy - real easy to use. Every morning I take his vital signs - his blood pressure, his O2, and then his weight. It automatically transfers into the cell phone that they gave me. And then on the phone there's a small screen with a button that says, "I accept." You push "I accept" and then it automatically flows straight to our care coordination office onto the software program, where, then, Kelly can monitor those patients, because all the results flow into there. Good morning, Rita. Hi Kelly. The real-time flow of data helps nurses like Kelly to keep an eye on the program's patients no matter where they live. She can head off problems early, change prescriptions, consult with doctors, or give advice to patients and caregivers. The program's goals are to reduce emergency room visits and hospital admissions and to lower costs. If every American with a chronic disease agreed to remote monitoring, estimates show healthcare savings would be more than $21 billion. And there's no price tag on improved quality of life. My dad - he likes it. It's really improved his health. It used to be, like, twice a month that he used to be in and out of the hospital. So now, since we're on that program, he hasn't been in the hospital for, probably, like two months, and that's what we're looking for. Wireless is the best thing ever for me and the best thing for my dad. Maybe some day he might end up riding a horse again and enjoying himself riding in the prairie to the sunset.