The Patient's Home: The New Healthcare Hub, a December 6, 2005 audio conference on CD-ROM, examines how healthcare organizations are using home monitoring technologies to improve care management and reduce healthcare costs.

Healthcare quality and access can be improved and healthcare costs reduced by moving care management functions away from provider offices and institutions and to the patient's home. Home monitoring technologies move care management processes away from costly centers of care.

During this 90-minute audio conference on CD-ROM, your expert panel of speakers, Vince Kuraitis, principal, Better Health Technologies and Nina Schneider, heart failure case manager, Pinnacle Health System, provide inside details on home monitoring technologies, including development, implementation, features and the results their application can yield.

You will get details on:

• Providing care management in the home using monitoring technologies;
• Evaluating the technologies available for home monitoring;
• Getting patients and providers to adopt these new technologies; and
• Overcoming the challenges to home monitoring programs.

You can "attend" this program right in your office and enjoy significant savings – no travel time or hassle; no hotel expenses. It’s so convenient! Invite your staff members to listen in.

Here's what participants said about the live program:

"This conference was very useful. We are currently researching programs and the material was very appropriate to the types of programs we are considering," said Mona Brack, a care management nurse with University Health Alliance.

WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS AUDIO CONFERENCE?

CEOs, medical directors, disease management directors, managers and coordinators, CIOs, e-health executives, telemedicine professionals, health plan executives, care management nurses, business development and strategic planning directors.

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS:

Vince Kuraitis, JD, MBA

Vince Kuraitis JD, MBA is principal with Better Health Technologies. He has 23 years healthcare experience in multiple roles for a variety of healthcare organizations, including hospitals, physician groups, medical devices, pharma, health plans, disease management, e-Health, IT, and others.

Since 1997 Kuraitis has worked as founder and principal of Better Health Technologies (BHT), LLC (www.bhtinfo.com), a strategy and business development consulting company. BHT creates value for patients and shareholders by leveraging technology, business models and partnerships in areas relating to e-health and chronic disease management. BHT publishes an e-newsletter with 3,000 subscribers in 27 countries (www.bhtinfo.com/pastissues.htm).

Kuraitis’ experience includes: president, Health Choice (medical call center), vice president corporate development and vice president specialty operations, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center; regional director of marketing, National Medical Enterprises (hospital chain with 100 facilities); senior consultant, Amherst Associates, national healthcare management consulting company.

Kuraitis is a board member of the Telemedicine Research Center and he is on the editorial advisory boards of Disease Management & Health Outcomes Journal and Home Healthcare Technology Report. He is on the editorial advisory board of the International Disease Management Alliance. Kuraitis also is on advisory boards for several early stage companies.

Kuraitis received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and a Jurus Doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Nina M. Schneider, BSN, RN

Nina M. Schneider, BSN, RN, is the heart failure case manager for PinnacleHealth Systems in Harrisburg, Pa. She has been in this position for 8 months and is developing the process for ensuring that the health system is meeting the quality indicators for congestive heart failure.

Previously, Schneider was PinnacleHealth Home Care’s cardiac team leader from 1997 to 2005. In 2001, she was instrumental in developing and implementing Home Care’s highly successful home tele-medicine program for patients with congestive heart failure, a program that lowered the re-hospitalization rate for these patients from the national average of 15 percent to 1.3 percent. Schneider is also responsible for orienting and scheduling Home Care’s cardiac care team nurses and for developing and implementing clinical Pathways for successfully managing cardiac patients.

Schneider has a solid background in cardiac care. The majority of her 17 years in nursing have been spent in a hospital Cardiac Monitoring Unit where she doubled as a preceptor and triage nurse, assisted with quality assurance audits, and was chairman of the patient education committee.

Schneider’s efforts in tele-medicine led to the PinnacleHealth System’s receiving a 2003 Hospital Association of PA Achievement Award for its Congestive Heart Failure Outcomes Program.

In addition to presenting workshops and publishing articles on tele-medicine and its impact on congestive heart failure management, Schneider was inducted into the National Nursing Honor Society in recognition of her leadership in community nursing, and for her role in developing and implementing a successful tele-health program for patients with congestive heart failure. Schneider was named president elect of her local chapter in April 2005.

Schneider earned her Associate Degree in Nursing from Harrisburg Area Community College; received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from Thomas Jefferson University; and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Health Administration from Pennsylvania State University.