This article is sponsored by TapestryHealth. In this Voices interview, Skilled Nursing News sits down with Mordy Eisenberg, Co-founder and Chief Growth & Product Officer of TapestryHealth, to explore the company’s latest advancements in AI-driven remote monitoring and predictive analytics. Eisenberg discusses how continuous data tracking is transforming early disease detection, reducing hospitalizations, and reshaping care delivery in skilled nursing facilities. He also shares how TapestryHealth is expanding its impact with new technology designed for assisted living, further elevating safety, efficiency, and patient outcomes.

Skilled Nursing News: We have spoken quite a bit over the years about the impact that Tapestry has had on the skilled nursing industry, beginning with re-defining telemedicine to becoming the leading innovator in advanced technology. What are the latest advances you are working on?

Mordy Eisenberg: Back then, while telemedicine certainly elevated the level of day-to-day care in every SNF that used it, it was still primarily relied upon for emergency care. Today, as we develop more and more advanced technologies the need for telemedicine as an emergency stop-gap to keep people out of the hospital is actually diminishing. The technology that was only a vague idea a few years ago is now widely used to alert nurses and clinical care staff to problems that have not even manifested themselves in the facility. For example, our continual patient monitoring tracks hundreds of data points for each patient, then compares them to billions of other data points to create what you might call an early warning system for signs of infections, viruses and other diseases, warnings that we never had before. Today, we often spot the problems when they are still at a very treatable stage so they never get to that emergency level. And with each passing month, our data lake grows and our AI improves.

How exactly is your AI improving?

Simple. The more data we accumulate, and the more types of data, the more we can parse it and analyze it. We can now look at the differences between sub-universes. For example, we can look at data on a certain virus from occurrences in large urban facilities vs. occurrences in smaller, more rural facilities, just because we have so much rich data to work with. Look at the simple arithmetic of continual data monitoring. We gather thousands of data points from a single patient every day. Multiply that by every patient in the facility, and every patient in the state, and every patient across hundreds and hundreds of facilities, 365 days a year, and you have an awful lot of data to fuel your artificial intelligence. Recommendations that were made on the total available data two years ago are now exponentially refined based on the current quantity of data, and it keeps getting better.

So, what is really leading this AI surge? Is it more advanced technology or more data to work with?

The answer is both. Again, the more data we accumulate, the more accurate our predictive modeling becomes. More accurate predictive modeling leads to many more cases of hospitalizations avoided, viral outbreaks curtailed, and even lives saved. That kind of word gets around and more and more SNFs begin looking into how they can add the technology to their facilities. But technology is advancing just as rapidly, and part of that means additional bits of data being tracked and analyzed. It also means that the technology is getting smaller and easier while at the same time becoming more powerful. Things like contactless patient monitoring are a good example.

But hasn’t remote patient monitoring been in use for quite some time?

It has, but that doesn’t mean that the technology we use isn’t always improving. For example, the very latest radar technology can scan a much wider area than before. With this technology, we can scan the entire room and even look into the bathroom without compromising the patient’s privacy in any way. That will have a major impact on patient safety in SNFs as well other healthcare environments.

Can you share an example of how, and what other environments you are talking about? 

I can, but let me start with one very alarming statistic: 50% of people over age 70 sustaining a hip fracture have a 50% mortality rate within 12 months. And a lot of falls go unreported, especially in cases where a patient falls, say in their room where no one sees it, and the event is not severe. The patient gets themselves up and never tells anyone what happened. But unreported falls just like that are biggest predictors of dangerous falls. When a fall goes unreported, no one investigates the cause of it. It could be, and often is, an indicator of something more serious that requires medical intervention. If their previous falls are recorded in the medical record, we can take steps to significantly change that statistic.

You mentioned other environments also.

Yes, and we are touching on something very new here. Tapestry is adding a new product to our suite of services that is ideal for Assisted Living facilities, and that’s going to open up a significant market for us. Our newest level of radar wave technology is so small that it goes virtually goes unnoticed in the room. And because it sees the entire environment, it is ideal for use in Assisted Living facilities. Now if person gets up to use the bathroom during the night, they are bit disoriented and they take a fall, we will know about it and be able to not only provide assistance but to make sure the event becomes part of that patient’s medical record. TapestryHealth is going to be bringing this level of safety-focused technology to the Assisted Living space later this year, which will not only elevate the level of care and safety they can provide, but will give residents the added peace of mind that comes from knowing that they are not alone, without feeling any invasion of privacy. And if we can do things like prevent falls in an Assisted Living facility, we can help people remain there longer, and that’s a win-win.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited for length and clarity.

TapestryHealth’s nationwide primary care practice protects your residents through 24/7 on-site and remote telehealth healthcare using the world’s leading telemedicine technology, bringing the benefits of a complete medical center right to your residents’ bedsides. To learn more, visit www.tapestryhealth.com, or call (203) 721-6822.

The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact [email protected].