Optimum Lightpath adds patient care service

Optimum Lightpath, a competitive optical service provider in the New York Metropolitan area, is now offering its hospital customers much more than business communications services. A new service, Patient Interactive Care, combines Optimum Lightpath’s all-fiber metro Ethernet network with patient care services from GetWellNetwork, which turns in-room TV sets into communications systems that deliver improved patient care and information.
The partnership will leverage Optimum Lightpath’s success selling to hospitals: 70% of hospitals in its footprint and almost 100% of Long Island hospitals use Optimum Lightpath’s service, said Julia McGrath, Optimum Lightpath's vice president of marketing and business development.

GetWellNetwork has developed a system that uses the existing in-room television sets but adds wireless keyboards and servers to create an interactive network that patients can use to get more information about their condition or to communicate directly with hospital personnel such as food service, housekeeping or patient transport, said Stephen Hiscott, vice president of GetWellNetwork. The idea is to get patients more engaged in their own care and to give them more information.

For Optimum Lightpath, the GetWellNetwork relationship is part of a strategic effort to offer more advanced applications specific to its customer base, McGrath said. “We are creating solutions that are meaningful to their businesses,” McGrath said. “In this case, interactive patient care strategy will transform our relationships with hospitals, and it will transform patient care and the experience that patients will come to expect from hospitals in this area.”

GetWellNetwork was born out of the experiences of its founder, Michael O’Neil, in his battle against cancer. While the medical outcome was successful, Hiscott said, O’Neill felt very detached from the process and experienced a severe loss of control, often finding he wanted more information than medical professionals had the time to provide.

“Couple this with the fact that his primary outlet for communication with the outside world was the TV which was rented to him on a per-day charge,” Hiscott said. The idea was to enable hospitals to provide patients with more opportunities to interact with the care process and provide a higher level of patient care while also potentially saving some money.

The patient uses either a wireless keyboard or a pillow speaker to interact with the system and to get Internet access via the TV screen as well. A headend that resides locally at each client site delivers video content through a video and application server, Hiscott said. GetWellNetwork provides a library of educational materials related to health conditions, as well as 30 Hollywood movies, interactive games and other content. Optimum Lightpath and GetWellNetwork will also help hospitals customize content.

“They are also able to customize content down to the patient level based on the patient’s diagnosis or treatment plan,” Hiscott said. “Typically that is done by unit or condition. There are two foundational elements that enable that.

We have a substantial amount of information regarding the patient to allow us to target that information,” based on interfaces to other hospital information systems such as admittance records. GetWellNetwork has developed patent-pending technology which proactively prompts a patient to react to care that is given by assessing pain levels or reaction to medication. The system can also prompt complete assessments of the patient condition or request the patient watch specific educational content, Hiscott said.

“We want to enable a smarter level of care and enable patients to be part of the care process, improving outcomes and satisfaction,” he said. By enabling patients to directly contact food service, housekeeping and other departments, the system may save nursing time, Hiscott said.

GetWellNetwork has deployed in over 60 sites, but this is the first partnership with a telecom provider. The deal is an exclusive one in Optimum Lightpath’s footprint, but GetWellNetwork would be open to working with other service providers, Hiscott said.

Optimum Lightpath has already gotten positive responses from many of its hospital customers, McGrath said.

“We are already receiving a very decent response – this is great news for hospitals in our area,” she said. “Our goal is to really create solutions meaningful for our business customers, improve and simplify the business processes and improve and enhance customer service and to improve and control costs.”