The demands for telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) have skyrocketed in the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic as patients with acute and chronic diseases take a backseat— refusing to go to hospitals due to the fear of infection and hospital overcapacity issues. In order to execute proper treatments while patients stay at home, physicians and care providers must ensure that health data is collected and analyzed continuously in real-time.
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) allows care providers to manage and monitor patients with many conditions remotely with the use of communication resources and tools, portable medical devices, and home health kits—while patients stay safely at home.
Patients can be provided with wireless or wearable home medical devices, such as a weighing scale, pulse oximeter, blood pressure monitor, or a smartwatch, and a mobile phone or other device for data collection. Through the power of technology, patient-generated health data or vital signs are automatically sent to the mobile device with a software or application, and transmitted to the provider’s data server for analysis. This may also send alerts if the patient’s measurements are out of normal range.
Patient Education and Engagement
Since patients are equipped with medical devices at home, remote patient monitoring solutions with multicast real-time data streaming helps them understand information concerning their condition(s) as they monitor their vital signs, resulting in better engagement and optimized health. When patients are actively involved and engaged with their care management, they are more likely to adhere to medical interventions or treatment plans.
Better Assessment and Improved Patient Outcomes
Continuous real-time data streaming allows healthcare providers to give better assessment while they monitor patients at home. For instance, patients with diabetes often do not feel particular symptoms associated with their disease until they experience hyperglycemia (glucose level too high) or hypoglycemia (glucose level too low). Through the use of a glucose monitoring device connected to a mobile app, the physiological data transmitted to the cloud allows doctors to give timely feedback, modify diet, or prescribe the right dosage of medications before it is too late, thus improving patient outcomes.
Provider Efficiency
In-person visits limit doctors’ daily appointments as they need to check each patient’s data and conduct lengthy sessions. That’s not only time consuming but can also lead to some lapses in details. RPM solutions with continuous real-time data streaming allow healthcare providers to save time and improve accuracy by monitoring patient-generated health data and manage their disease(s) remotely. In most cases, telemedicine appointments are likely to be quicker than in-person visits. One study found that the typical online appointment only lasts about 12 minutes, roughly 20% less than in-person appointments.
