The Welcome Call

Posted on March 22, 2012 by bbotos

Our clients are our number one priority. Without them, there would be no VRI, which is why we take so much time making sure they know we are here for them. With every client that comes onboard with VRI, we greet them with a welcome call when a they press their button for the first time, typically when we first install their unit. Below are two examples of welcome calls, one from VRI, one from Lifeline which recently “streamlined” its welcome call to Continue reading →

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My Medical Alert Story

Posted on January 12, 2012 by bbotos

At VRI we have a pretty extensive orientation to the company called “VRI GO!”. As part of the program I get to spend time with the folks who are new to our company. It gives me a chance to get to know them and for them to get to know me. At our most recent VRI GO, we had 8 new employees; new telehealth nurses, Care Center Representatives, and even a new manager of our Home Service Rep group. We got into a conversation about how we all had personal stories about loved ones being impacted by our service so I thought I would share my personal medical alert story.

My Grandpa was a great guy. Super smart, jovial, and always interested in his grandkids endeavors. He’d always ask when I saw him “How many units are you monitoring now?” and he was always happy Continue reading →

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Dayton Business Journal Nominee – Service Business of the Year

Posted on September 30, 2011 by bbotos

We continually pride ourselves on being innovative. Innovative in the way we treat our clients. Innovative in the way we treat our employees. Thankfully its paid off. Not only are we growing our customer base in a time of economic turmoil, we are hiring while the largest players in our industry are laying off. Thanks so much to the Dayton Business Journal for acknowledging innovative service based companies:

Franklin, Ohio, September 29, 2011 – Valued Relationships, Inc (VRI) announced today that the company has been named as a finalist for “Service Business of the Year” by the Dayton Business Journal. The awards ceremony will be held Continue reading →

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The Results Are In…

Posted on August 5, 2011 by bbotos

When you talk to clinicians who are responsible for taking care of patients with chronic illnesses and ask what the key is to keeping these folks out of the hospital, they overwhelmingly respond with one word: Adherence. Whether it’s medication adherence (40% of people that are admitted to nursing homes do so because they can’t adhere to their medication regimen) or adherence to a doctors requirement to take their weight, blood sugar, pulse ox or blood pressures on a daily basis, VRI has a solution to help those in need.

Recently, we received some interesting stats back on our telemonitoring program and we wanted to share that data with you. Continue reading →

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Celebrating our Superheroes

Posted on June 15, 2011 by bbotos

I continue to be amazed by my team. A few blogs back we wrote about one of our Care Center Representatives, Jenna, who provided heroic customer service to one of our medical alert customers. Recently, our telehealth team demonstrated the same dedication to our customers and I am extremely proud to be able to tell that story:

VRI has partnered with a large health plan in Florida to implement a telemonitoring program for the plans COPD, CHF and diabetes members. When we called one of the program’s COPD members to take his readings for the day we found out that the member was living in a trailer, without air conditioning, Continue reading →

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Being Careful with Cool

Posted on May 19, 2011 by bbotos

We are fortunate to be in an industry were there are a large number of entrepreneurs that are trying to tap into the “baby boomer” market. We get inundated with new ideas, new devices, and new strategies designed to allow seniors to “age in place.” It’s inspiring to see the free flow of ideas and the entrepreneurial spirit that comes from people trying to help seniors age in place so I hesitate to criticize new ideas.  However, my feedback to entrepreneurs pursuing this line of work is to make sure that they understand these two simple pieces of the age in place market:

1) Understand the “use case” of these new products and services and 2) break down the “Medicare” market into a couple different age categories to understand their abilities and desire to use technology. Continue reading →

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CHF Telemonitoring: Getting it Right

Posted on December 3, 2010 by jmcelroy

Yale Medical Center recently released a telemedicine study which failed to show a reduction in hospital admissions for patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). This study included 1,653 patients who had just been released from the hospital after an exacerbation of their CHF. The patients were required to call in their daily weight readings to an automated system. The Yale researchers found that the telemedicine patients had the same rate of re-admission for CHF, heart attacks, and death as the control group did.

The studies findings were surprising and disappointing to many and contrary to a number of studies which have shown that telemedicine has a significant, positive impact on patients with CHF.

However, the results were not surprising to any of us at VRI. We have long understood the importance of human interaction as a component of any successful telemonitoring program. Simply having patients call in daily weights and symptoms to an automated system is unlikely to be effective for the patients that are most likely to require intervention. Indeed, this was revealed by the Yale study’s findings that compliance with calling in daily weights was poor, and worsened over time. Our own experience has been that a well designed CHF monitoring program has very high patient adherence (especially with VRI’s person-to-person reminder calls). Continue reading →

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Why our Healthcare System Ignores Diabetics

Posted on November 11, 2010 by andy

Everyone sees it coming. Every Health Plan Chief Medical Officer in the country knows it’s an issue. The USA Today recently wrote about it. Diabetes is quickly becoming the most expensive and expansive disease in the country. Some quick facts:

  • Total costs of diabetes: $174 Billion
  • Just under 10% of the population has diabetes in 2010 and an estimated 30% will have diabetes by 2050.
  • 65% of those with diabetes die of a heart attack or stroke
  • Persons with diabetes have 2.3x more medical costs than those who do not have diabetes.

So why isn’t the healthcare system doing anything about it? I asked this question to a Chief Medical Officer at a large Health Plan. His response “Given the transient nature of our system, by the time we see savings from treatment of diabetes the patient is probably going to be either covered under Medicare or will be enrolled with a different plan.” What he is saying is that diabetics usually only get really expensive after long term uncontrolled exposure to the disease which can have a severe impact on the heart, kidneys, eyesight and can result in amputations, dialysis, heart attacks, stroke. Diabetics are not that expensive in the short term. Yes, plans pay for strips, glucometers, etc but that costs $30-$50 a month. Additionally, early stage diabetics don’t typically go to the ER for reasons associated with diabetes and when they do they are rarely admitted. Therefore the plan has two choices. Option 1: Continue the status quo and hope that by the time the patient gets expensive they are either with a different plan (which is not unusual given we tend to change plans often) or the taxpayer is footing the bill (Medicare). Option 2: Spend a lot of money on changing the behavior of someone with diabetes, hope that it lowers cost, and hope that the plan spending the money is the recipient of those savings. Most Plans have historically gone with Option #1. Continue reading →

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We Provide Heroic Customer Service

Posted on October 7, 2010 by andy

He-ro – a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.

Our employees do amazing things every day to help our clients. They strive to go above and beyond to make sure that we take care of our clients. In some cases, our employees do something so extraordinary that we award them our Customer Service Super Hero Award. This week we had the pleasure of giving this award to one of our Care Center Representatives, Jenna.

Last week, while Jenna was working in the Care Center, a signal came in that one of our units had lost power in a client’s home. Our units have a battery back up, but we always call when a client’s unit loses power to make sure that they are okay and to see if they need any help. When Jenna placed the call to this client’s home, she learned that the client’s power had been turned off due to their inability to pay. This was particularly distressing to Jenna as she knew that this particular client was bed bound, on oxygen, and had a host of other problems and three small children in the home. The client explained to Jenna that her husband had tried to get the electric company to turn the power back on but had been unsuccessful. Continue reading →

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Advertising in the Medical Alert Industry: Scare Tactic or Just Plain Scary?

Posted on September 28, 2010 by andy

Every time I see my grandpa I get the same welcome; “I’ve fallen and I can’t reach my beer,” obviously making a joke about those seven words (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”) that make (most) industry leaders cringe.   To Life Alert’s credit, they have helped to develop an industry from its nascence to a large legitimate industry that employs tens of thousands of people and saves hundred of thousands of people a year.

 While there is some credit due, I continue to ask myself: is this really what our industry is about? A woman lying on the floor immobilized. A man clutching his leg in pain. Though gruesome, these terrifying pictures appear in medical alert advertisements on a daily basis from the “leaders” in the industry. Even more frightening, our society has become immune to these types of offensive images and messages perpetuated by certain companies in the medical alert industry. Another provider (to be unnamed) has a display at conferences where they push a dummy down the stairs in order to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of their fall detection sensors. Again, most of the industry tends to capitalize on the fears and emotions of the elderly and their caregivers instead of presenting the positive side of medical alert monitoring. Continue reading →

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