Bellinda Conte, MS, MBA & Amy Hillsman, MSN, ANP-BC
The battle against cancer requires both medical expertise and innovative solutions. Technology has become an invaluable ally in the cancer care journey, enabling more precise diagnostics, personalized treatment, and improved patient care. The heart of Reimagine Care is our ability to seamlessly integrate cutting-edge technology with the compassion of our Virtual Care Center (VCC) healthcare professionals into the patient’s existing care team at the cancer center. The VCC provides patients with 24/7 access to Advance Practice Providers (APP) and Registered Nurses (RN) through a symphony of support via SMS text, phone, and video. This synergy of humans and technology promises to redefine the cancer care experience, making it more efficient and patient-centric for patients, caregivers, and providers alike.
Cancer centers are often bustling hubs of activity, with multidisciplinary teams working tirelessly to provide the best quality care to vulnerable patients. However, the complex and fragmented nature of cancer care often leads to challenges such as patients navigating their own care and journey, obtaining timely access to information, and managing the financial toxicity that comes with treatment. This is where Reimagine Care steps in, offering innovative solutions to enhance the patient’s experience.
Integrating into the existing operations and technology of brick-and-mortar cancer centers is complex and unique, but can have a powerful impact on patients, caregivers, clinicians, and physicians. Blending smart technology and the compassion, empathy, and expertise of our VCC team not only drives diverse points of access for patients, but also allows for real-time patient-centered care and personalized support.
Our Integration Model
Patient Engagement: Reimagine Care proactively engages patients with symptom surveys, electronic patient reported outcome surveys, and other content through our virtual assistant, REMI. This approach enables our VCC to interact with patients in real-time around the clock, answer questions, offer support, and resolve symptoms. Being able to consistently engage patients in this way is critical to improving the experience, demonstrating strong clinical outcomes, and reducing the daily burdens on the cancer center team.
Remote Patient Monitoring: Reimagine Care offers remote monitoring solutions to understand a patient’s vital signs in near real-time. Patients can use connected devices to track vital signs and report symptoms from the comfort of their homes. This not only enhances patient comfort but also enables early intervention if issues arise.
Personalized Care: The integration of technology allows our team to deliver highly personalized care. Our proprietary algorithms analyze patient data in real-time – including disease history, severity of symptoms, utilization, and distress – to recommend the right care for the right patient at the right time. This level of personalization significantly improves patient outcomes, decreasing the chances that patients will need to seek care at an urgent care or ER.
Streamlined Communication: With any care delivery model, efficient and effective communication is critical for the safe delivery of care. Integrated technology solutions facilitate seamless communication, allowing a patient’s oncologist and Reimagine Care’s APPs and RNs to collaborate in a structured way and facilitate better care coordination while improving the overall patient experience. This ensures that no critical information is lost in transit, reducing risks of errors and ensuring that treatment decisions are made timely.
Data-Driven Insights: Reimagine Care excels at collecting and analyzing vast amounts of patient data in real-time. This includes EMR data, symptom surveys, electronic patient reported outcomes, biometric data, and much more. This data is synthesized into one dashboard for the VCC, which allows us to have a full, 360-degree view of each patient we’re serving. The VCC also ensures the primary oncology team has visibility into this data, our clinical decision-making process, virtual and at-home interventions and general support offered to the patient. This process allows for swift and informed decision making amongst the entire care team.
The Benefits:
The integration of our team and technology with a cancer center’s existing operations offers several compelling benefits:
Patient-Centric Care: Patients become active participants in their care, leading to a more satisfying and empowering experience. Over 90% of patients want on-demand access to their care team, but it’s impossible for most organizations to provide this level of support alone. With Reimagine Care acting as an extension of the practice, patients are able to spend more time at home, with those they love, while having the peace of mind there are oncology experts ready to support them if needed.
Improved Patient Outcomes: Personalized treatment plans and real-time data access lead to better treatment decisions and clinical outcomes.
Efficiency and Cost Savings: Streamlined operations reduce administrative burdens, which enables the cancer center team to focus on direct patient care. Reimagine Care’s team and technology deliver a more cost-efficient solution for triage and symptom management, while also creating capacity for the right patients in the clinic.
As we continue to reimagine the way we fight cancer, this synergy between tech and people may be the key to unlocking breakthroughs and improving the lives of the millions of people individuals affected by this disease.
About Bellinda Conte, MS, eMBA: Bellinda Conte is the Senior Vice President, Operations of Reimagine Care, the nation’s leading provider of virtual and in home cancer care. Bellinda is an accomplished healthcare executive and leader of change with 20 years of diverse experience specializing in service line development, operations, clinical operations, financial management, clinical research, and innovation projects for national health care systems. Her experience includes leadership responsibilities for both not-for-profit and for-profit multi-hospital systems with a proven track record of successfully leading the development of key service lines, clinical programs, and operational improvements.
Prior to joining Reimagine Care, Bellinda was the Senior Vice President, Strategy and Clinical Programs at Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) where she had national responsibility for clinical research and precision medicine. Prior to joining CTCA, Bellinda spent four years at Tenet Healthcare holding several senior leadership positions from a Chief Operating Officer to leading a national workforce development initiative achieving $3.0 million in workforce grants. Bellinda also spent ten years at Inova Health System designing and implementing clinical programs, clinical research, and physician networks for the oncology service line successfully leading the organization in the development of the first Inova Breast Care Physician Network integrating community and employed physicians, achieving system-wide accreditation by the National Accreditation for Breast Centers and publishing her work in the Oncology Issues of Association of Community Cancer Centers.
Bellinda earned an eMBA from University of Texas at San Antonio, a Master of Science in Health Care Administration from Georgetown University and is a board member and advisor for multiple non-profit organizations.
About Amy Hillsman, MSN, ANP-BC: Amy Hillsman is the Senior Director of the Virtual Care Center at Reimagine Care. She is a nurse practitioner with oncology specialty certification from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She has over twenty years of oncology experience working across academic, community and research medical centers.
About Reimagine Care: We believe people living with cancer deserve a better patient experience; to feel their best and to spend as much time as possible with the people they love, doing the things that bring them joy. Reimagine Care integrates clinical oncology experts and robust, enabling technologies to deliver a high-touch, individualized cancer treatment and recovery experience from home. This holistic approach relies on the combination of empathy and knowledge of our clinical care team with our thoughtfully designed and easy-to-use platform.
Our vision and our approach fuel the delivery of high-quality, safe, home-centered, coordinated cancer care that makes care more patient-centric, accessible, affordable, and the first choice for patients everywhere.
Extending Care Beyond the Clinic.