You want the best care possible for your patients, but providing a better quality of care is more than prescribing medication. It’s about ensuring the treatment is effective and appropriate in achieving a successful patient outcome and quality of life.
Suppose your patients are struggling to manage bronchiectasis-related symptoms. In that case, it may be time to reassess their current treatment plan and consider the benefits of adding high frequency chest wall oscillation (HFCWO) therapy with SmartVest.
SmartVest HFCWO Therapy for Airway Clearance
You may be familiar with the benefits of HFCWO therapy devices, but not all respiratory vests offer the same degree of coverage and consistency.
The SmartVest Airway Clearance System is an inflatable vest that fills with air to provide 360° chest wall coverage. Rather than only focusing on certain parts of the lungs, SmartVest targets both the upper and lower lobes of the lungs while delivering repeated pulses of air that gently squeeze and release the upper chest wall.
The oscillation frequency helps loosen and propel mucus upwards, where it’s easier to cough out.
How To Evaluate Your Patient’s Bronchiectasis Treatment Plan
With another year underway, it may be time to reassess your patient’s treatment plan for managing symptoms. In this guide, we’ll discuss 5 important metrics to help determine the efficacy of your patients’ current treatment.
Patient Comfort
Vest therapy is convenient and a non-invasive method for treating chronic lung conditions that produce excess mucus, making breathing more difficult.
While devices can produce some noise and vibration during use, it is usually well-tolerated by most patients. Additionally, patients can perform vest therapy for bronchiectasis independently and in the comfort of their homes, making it an ideal option for those who live alone or need to perform sessions daily to reduce mucus buildup.
However, not every device provides the same level of comfort. And if therapy becomes uncomfortable, it creates a negative experience for patients, leading to increased patient non-adherence.
SmartVest is designed to release 91% of its air between compressions, creating more BREATHING ROOM™ and patient comfort [1]. As a result, patients can enjoy a comfortable therapy experience each session and adjust the frequency of vibrations and pressure to ensure maximum comfort. Furthermore, it’s the smallest and lightest HFCWO device with an inflatable vest on the market!
Ease of Use
In addition to comfort, ease of use is another essential component of patient adherence. Starting a new therapy treatment can be intimidating, especially if a patient is unfamiliar with how to program and adjust their device.
With SmartVest, patients can easily transport their generators to different areas of the home with a nearby outlet to begin therapy. Most importantly, when you prescribe SmartVest, our team will automatically set up a personalized training session with one of our registered respiratory therapists to visit patients’ homes and walk them through operating and troubleshooting the device.
Furthermore, once your patient becomes a SmartVest user, they can expect quality customer service for life! If they have a question, need a part replaced, or have to replace their vest, they call us, and we take it from there.
Symptom Relief
Comfort and ease of use are two critical components of bronchiectasis treatment; however, you want to ensure that your prescribed therapy is actually doing its most essential responsibility: providing symptom relief.
SmartVest is clinically proven to:
- Reduce bronchiectasis-related exacerbations that require hospitalization
- Decrease antibiotic usage
- Improve lung stability [2]
In addition to these independent study findings, SmartVest users continue to share their success stories about how SmartVest has helped them find relief from their chronic symptoms, allowing them to pursue their hobbies and enjoy a better quality of life.
Affordability
Finances are often a topic of conversation for both patients and clinicians to pursue the best treatment possible for managing chronic lung conditions.
SmartVest can help patients save on therapy costs [3] in the following ways:
Medical Expenses: SmartVest may help offset medical costs associated with hospitalization due to flare-ups and antibiotic prescriptions.
Reimbursement: Once you prescribe SmartVest, our team will work to streamline the reimbursement process on behalf of your patients to ensure payments are processed and received promptly.
Insurance Coverage: SmartVest is also covered by certain private insurances, Medicare, State Medical Assistance, a combination of these insurance carriers, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Patient & Care Team Collaboration
An effective way of assessing the effectiveness of a particular treatment is to monitor its progress regularly. This can be done periodically by tracking changes in the patient’s symptoms, which allows you to make adjustments if needed. Therefore, staying on top of these changes ensures your patient receives the highest quality care available.
Further, tracking your patients reactions and experiences with therapy is also beneficial. Many clinicians may do this through surveys or interviews; however, this process is time-confusing and may require additional support from your staff.
SmartVest Connect allows healthcare teams and patients to collaborate using any smart device easily. Using Bluetooth connectivity and real-time data analysis, patients monitor therapy performance at home or on the go with quick, easy-to-use wireless features.
They can also leave comments, ask questions, and add emojis to their reports after each session to let you know how they feel about their therapy.
Airway Clearance in 2023 & Beyond
Evaluating your patients’ current bronchiectasis treatment plan can help detect potential issues or gaps in therapy that are preventing them from finding relief and getting back to feeling their best.
If you’d like to learn more about how SmartVest can provide your patients’ symptom relief, reduce hospital expenses, and improve treatment adherence, contact us at (800) 462-1045. To start prescribing SmartVest now, we offer easy access to GoScripts to send your prescriptions electronically, in addition to reimbursement support to ensure your patients can start experiencing the benefits of airway clearance right away!
In the meantime, browse our clinical resources for more independent studies on why SmartVest may be the right choice for airway clearance.
Resources
[1] Pokorney J. Comparison of Oscillatory Trough Pressure Generated by High Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation (HFCWO) Systems: A White Paper.
[2] Powner, J, et al. Employment of Algorithms of Care Including Chest Physiotherapy Results in Reduced Hospitalizations and Stability of Lung Function in Bronchiectasis. BMC Pulmonary Medicine, BioMed Central. 25 Apr. 2019
[3] Sievert, CE et al. 2017. Cost-Effective Analysis of Using High Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation (HFCWO) in Patients with Non-Cystic Fibrosis Bronchiectasis. Respiratory Therapy, 12(1), 45-49.
