Temple University Hospital Actively Onboarding Patients, Employees, and Frontline Healthcare Workers on to HGE COVID Care Platform to Fight the Spread of COVID-19

PHILADELPHIA, March 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to accelerate across the country, Temple University Hospital (TUH), its Department of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery, and the Temple Lung Center have taken proactive steps to protect its staff and patients using HGE Health's COVID Care symptom tracking platform and triage/care coordination services. Temple is now enrolling patients, faculty, staff, frontline workers and their families at risk for or experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 in HGE Health's platform to remotely monitor them while they are social distancing or quarantined at home. Additionally, individuals will be monitored during their convalescence at home following hospitalization for COVID-19 to ensure continued resolution of their symptoms. The use of HGE's COVID-19 solution provides close monitoring of the patient's daily symptoms and risk factors while preventing unnecessary staff exposure to COVID-19.

"We have extensive experience with monitoring thousands of patients on a daily basis that live with COPD and following lung transplantation. We've now leveraged those 17 years of experience and expertise into a scalable and easy-to-use COVID-19 engagement, monitoring, and triage platform," said Michael J. Markus, PhD, the CEO of HGE Health. "We are now actively working with Temple to support their patients, at-risk individuals, and the healthcare workers who are working night and day to care for the community at large. The expanded use of our platform is already enabling Temple to remotely quarantine potential COVID-19 patients, and provide them with care in their own homes, where they will not expose others to the virus."

COVID-19 has now spread to over 110 countries around the world, infecting more than 120,000 and killing more than 4,000. The World Health Organization ("WHO") recognizes that the severity of Coronavirus is linked to the age and health condition of patients and has recently declared it a pandemic. Patients of advanced age (at least 60 years old) and diagnosed with a co-morbid disease are the most likely to experience a severe infection of Coronavirus. HGE Health's digital platform and technology-enabled services, called HGE Care, allows physicians to remotely care for patients from anywhere in the nation, and help patients better understand and manage changes in their symptoms. Thanks to daily digital interaction with their healthcare team, patients are engaged in their own symptom management, and log their symptoms on the HGE Care platform over 80% - 90% of the time. Patients enjoy peace of mind that each day they experience a change from their typical symptoms, their own physician/care team will provide same-day feedback, helping patients breathe easier, avoiding ER visits and hospital admissions, and enjoy an improved quality of life, all while reducing overall healthcare costs for patients and their health plan.
Editor's Note: HGE Health Care Solutions is the exclusive licensee to certain Temple University intellectual property.

Dr. Gerard Criner, Director of the Temple Lung Center, is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of HGE Health Care Solutions.

Temple University and Dr. Criner hold minority equity positions in the company.

About HGE Health
Headquartered in Fort Washington, PA, HGE Health harnesses its deep experience in chronic disease management and digital health in pulmonary disease, telemedicine, and mobile health to develop a clinical services platform that delivers better care faster at a much lower cost for patients, physicians and payors. Built on clinical protocols developed and supported by 16 years of research, the company's technology has compiled the longest-running and world's largest longitudinal data set of COPD symptoms, interventions and clinical management to help physicians provide care for a geographically and socio-economically diverse COPD and pulmonary patient population.

About Temple Health
Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $2.2 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH); TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Jeanes Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; The Hospital of Fox Chase Cancer Center and Affiliates, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices; and Temple Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., TUHS's physician practice plan comprised of more than 500 full-time and part-time academic physicians in 20 clinical departments. TUHS is affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Katz School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.

It is the policy of Temple University Health System that there shall be no exclusion from or participation in, and no one denied the benefits of, the delivery of quality medical care on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, disability, age, ancestry, color, national origin, physical ability, level of education, or source of payment.

SOURCE HGE Health