Telehealth and Virtual care are growing fields of importance, but the loss of comprehensive physical exam creates barriers to managing complex patients especially those with heart failure. Disruptive digital tools such as VPExam virtual care combine augmented reality instruction of visuals with bluetooth stethoscopes and ECGs to improve accuracy by assessing volume status, cardiopulmonary auscultation, arrythmia detection, and providing structured data including remote patient monitoring (RPM) data, vitals, medication reconciliation, and labs. VPExam intervention has significantly improved outcomes for high-risk and underserved populations with heart failure discharged to Skilled Nursing Facilities and Home Care. VPExam QI revealed workflows for both routine and urgent cardiology consultation following heart failure hospitalizations resulted in moderate significance modification in clinical management in 84% of encounters, while being associated with a 40% relative risk reduction in 30-day hospital readmission rate and a 56% relative risk reduction in 30-day mortality rate. The review summarizes both challenges to cardiac transitions of care and the evolution of cardiac virtual care with actionable physical exam data to optimize readmissions and mortality that is especially relevant to the underserved populations of skilled nursing facilities and home bound patients served by home care agencies.
Keywords: Telemedicine, Quality Improvement, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), Transition of care, Physical exam.