A Comprehensive Guide to Unlocking Remote Patient Monitoring Beyond Healthcare

Successful implementation of Remote Patient Monitoring requires the right information and best practices.

Understanding Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM): What it is and Why it Matters

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a rapidly growing field in healthcare that is revolutionizing how patients are monitored and managed. RPM involves the use of digital technology to collect medical and other forms of physiologic health data from patients in one location and transmit it securely to healthcare providers in different locations for their assessment and recommendations. This technology allows for more efficient and cost-effective management of patient health, reducing the requirement for in-person office visits, and providing a number of advantages for both patients and providers.

RPM is rapidly growing in importance in the healthcare industry because it allows for increased levels of convenience and safety. With the ability to remotely monitor patient vital signs, medication adherence, and other health metrics, healthcare providers can better manage patients’ health and provide more efficient care. RPM also offers an invaluable resource for patients, allowing them to remain connected to their healthcare provider while receiving care from the comfort of their homes.

The uptake of RPM has accelerated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related rise in demand for telehealth services. The added reimbursement for RPM programs by Medicare and other insurance providers has also been a big factor in the growth of RPM. As it continues to gain acceptance in the healthcare industry, it’s clear that its importance will only continue to grow as it allows for increased levels of convenience and safety for patients, and more efficient and cost-effective care for providers.

What is Remote Patient Monitoring?

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) is a telehealth delivery system that uses technology to remotely collect and transmit patient data to healthcare providers for analysis and interpretation. Wearable devices, smartphones, and other digital tools are used to track vital signs and health metrics, such as blood pressure, heart rate, weight, oxygen levels, and blood glucose levels.

Patient education and support are also an integral aspect of RPM, enabling patients to better understand and manage their own health condition(s). The high quantity of real-time data provided by RPM enables healthcare providers to make more accurate diagnoses and customize treatments for patients, which leads to better patient outcomes. RPM technology provides patients with a convenient and efficient way to manage their health.

The use of a patient monitoring program enables healthcare providers to consistently monitor patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as post-operative recovery and rehabilitation. Patients are provided with an easy-to-use monitoring platform that allows them to monitor their own vital signs and symptoms and transmit health data to their healthcare providers for real-time analysis.

How does Remote Patient Monitoring work?

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) works by using digitally connected devices to collect and securely transmit data about a patient’s health status through a monitoring software program. These devices can include health wearables such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and activity monitors, as well as other tools such as blood pressure cuffs, glucose meters, weight scales and pulse oximeters. These devices measure vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, blood glucose levels, weight and body temperature. The patient is provided with one or more monitoring devices – depending on their specific health needs – that collects their health data and transmits it to a secure platform, where it can be accessed and analyzed by healthcare providers at any time. Once the data is received by the healthcare provider, it is analyzed and interpreted, any necessary actions are taken, such as adjusting medication dosages or scheduling follow-up appointments.

Overall, the main goal of RPM is to provide medical practitioners with a high quantity of quality real-time data and insight into the patient’s vital signs, enabling them to make more accurate diagnoses and provide more effective treatment.

What are Remote Patient Monitoring Devices?

Remote Patient Monitoring devices are a crucial component of the RPM process. These medical devices allow patients to collect and transmit data about their health status to healthcare providers for analysis and interpretation. The tools used can vary depending on the condition being monitored and the patient’s needs.

Some examples of remote monitoring devices include:

Wearables: Smartwatches, fitness trackers, and activity monitors are commonly used to collect data on physical activity, heart rate, and sleep patterns.
Blood pressure cuffs: These measure blood pressure and can transmit the data to a healthcare provider for analysis.
Glucose meters: These measure blood glucose levels and can be used by patients with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar levels.
Pulse oximeters: These measure oxygen saturation levels in the blood and can be used to monitor patients with chronic lung conditions such as COPD.
Weight scales: These measure weight and can be used to monitor weight changes in patients with health conditions such as obesity.
Thermometers: These measure body temperature and can be used to monitor fever in patients with infectious diseases.

It’s important to note that some RPM devices may require additional equipment such as a hub that connects to the internet to transmit data to a healthcare provider.

Everyone Wins: What are the Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring?

The benefits of RPM are undeniable. This technological health innovation allows for more efficient and cost-effective management of patient health, leading to improved outcomes for patients and cost savings for the entire health system. This modality of telehealth helps to improve communication between patients and physicians, and enables real-time monitoring of patients, which leads to improved engagement and adherence to treatment plans. RPM is also beneficial for clinical trials, because it allows for more frequent, accurate, and inexpensive data collection, leading to more robust and reliable study results at lower cost. With RPM reimbursement becoming more widely available, the use of RPM is becoming more common and widespread, and its importance will only continue to grow within the healthcare system. In this section, we will discuss the various benefits of RPM for patients, healthcare providers, clinical trials, payers and the entire healthcare system. With RPM, everyone wins!

Benefit for Patients

Enhanced Chronic Disease Management: Medical providers can remotely monitor and manage their patients’ chronic diseases through the monitoring of chronic health conditions and the tracking of patient recovery, eliminating the need for in-person visits to the doctor’s office. This allows for more efficient and effective management of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, and COPD.
Reduced Number of Emergencies, Hospitalizations and Readmissions: RPM helps prevent costly and serious emergency situations by enabling early intervention and better management of chronic illnesses. As a result, patients are less likely to require hospitalization or readmission.
Greater Control over Personal Health: Next-generation RPM solutions come with user-friendly mobile applications that provide patients with a comprehensive analysis of their health, allowing them to make informed decisions about their lifestyle, diet, and treatment plan adherence.
Fewer In-Person Office Visits: RPM enables patients to receive care from the comfort of their own homes, reducing the risk of illness and the cost and time associated with travel.
Improved Patient Education and Support: Constant communication between patients and their physicians through RPM allows for enhanced levels of education, support, and feedback, leading to more effective personalized and individualized care.
Improved Quality of Care: Patient data collected through RPM provides healthcare providers with valuable insights that improve evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment prescriptions. Additionally, real-time monitoring and symptom analysis with clinicians enables earlier intervention and better management of patients’ conditions, which helps to dramatically improve patient outcomes.

Benefit for Healthcare Providers

Improved Productivity: RPM increases the efficiency of the clinical process. It can act as a conduit for better prioritization of medical care delivery, better triaging of each case, and improved communication by gathering, storing, and using health data to help improve medical decision-making. Furthermore, by reducing waiting room congestion and devoting more time to patients who require immediate attention, healthcare providers can boost productivity by seeing more patients, resulting in increased revenue for their practice.
Increased Practice Revenue Streams: The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) supports the implementation of RPM so that both patients and providers can benefit. CMS has boosted telehealth and RPM with their own unique Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Codes, which allow healthcare providers to bill for remote patient interactions. RPM can also help providers achieve a competitive advantage by using innovative treatment models to attract and keep more patients.
Increased Patient Engagement and Satisfaction: Thanks to RPM, patients feel that someone is “watching over” them and caring about their health as their health data is sent to their clinicians. Since the patient themselves gathers the data, this empowers patients to play a more active role in managing their health, by taking their measurements at home, or almost anywhere, and knowing that their provider could be contacted if their vital signs exceed their normal range. Clinicians can now equip patients with a means to better care for their own health in between virtual clinical appointments as part of proactive treatment.
Greater Access to Care and Greater Patient Reach: During the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients and doctors wanted to reduce in-person contact for routine appointments, telehealth became a more significant means of providing healthcare. Telehealth and remote patient monitoring enable rural hospitals and clinics to provide high-quality healthcare services closer to home and at lower costs, benefiting underserved patients by eliminating the need to travel great distances for specialty care.

Moreover, we are all aware of the growing shortage of medical workers; remote patient monitoring programs have the potential to extend provider networks in new and innovative ways, hence improving access to care. RPM can be used to link people who live in rural locations far away from adequate health services, or who are unable to access traditional healthcare for any reason. Owing to RPM’s ease of use, digital divide in healthcare is bridged, allowing senior people who are less tech-savvy to manage their own health.

The CMS supports the reimbursement of RPM through the use of CPT codes. This means that healthcare providers can be reimbursed for providing RPM services to their patients. To know more about the specific RPM codes and requirements for reimbursement, please click this guide.

The benefits of RPM extend beyond just patients and healthcare providers. Other stakeholders, such as pharmaceutical companies, payers, and healthcare organizations, also stand to gain from the implementation of this technology. 

Benefits for Clinical Trials

Increased patient engagement: RPM enables real-time monitoring of patients in clinical trials, leading to improved engagement and adherence to treatment plans.
Improved data collection: RPM enables frequent and accurate data collection, leading to more robust and reliable study results.
Reduced costs: RPM reduces the need for in-person visits and hospital stays, leading to cost savings for both patients and healthcare providers.

These are just a few examples of the benefits of RPM for clinical trials. To learn more about additional benefits and how it can improve your clinical trial outcomes, please see this article.

Benefits for Clinical Trials

Cost savings: RPM reduces the need for in-person visits and hospital stays, leading to cost savings for patients, healthcare providers, and payers.
Improved population health: By regularly monitoring patients with chronic conditions, payers can more effectively manage these conditions, leading to improved population health and lower healthcare costs.
Better utilization of resources: RPM helps payers identify patients who require more intensive care, and direct them to the appropriate level of care, resulting in better utilization of resources.

Remote Monitoring for Chronic Disease Management Programs

Remote patient monitoring program for chronic disease management programs is an effective way for healthcare providers to intervene more quickly and avoid a controllable illness from becoming a health emergency requiring hospitalization.

Hypertension Management

Remote patient monitoring systems can send notifications in real-time if the blood pressure reading deviates from an established range. It also saves the measurement data on a regular basis, aiding medical experts in detecting any unusual blood pressure trends. This eliminates the tediousness of regularly logging and reporting readings in the traditional at-home manner, while also reducing the chance of medical emergencies.

Cardiovascular Disease Management

For cardiovascular disease management, the use of RPM has proven to significantly enhance patient outcomes. RPM devices have been shown to lower blood pressure, forecast heart failure decompensation, and detect arrhythmia earlier to allow for more timely intervention. Data collection from those who have, or are at risk of, cardiovascular disease can now be done remotely. A number of stand-alone devices can assess symptoms, body weight, activity, blood pressure, pulse rate and regularity, heart sounds, respiratory rate, an electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation, and sleep quality. RPM has already been shown to be effective in the treatment of various cardiovascular diseases. Patients’ compliance has increased as a result of the shift from manual to automatic remote monitoring. Furthermore, RPM’s ability to send data directly to healthcare providers leads to better management and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Obesity and Weight Management

Obesity represents a significant health burden in the US, with around 4 in 10 Americans being overweight or obese. A myriad of health problems is associated with obesity, including cardiovascular disease, fatty liver, diabetes, and even cancer. This being the case, weight loss is strongly recommended to improve health outcomes and prevent complications and additional risks to one’s health. Remote patient monitoring can play an important role in aiding the weight loss process.

Integral to weight loss programs is the ability to measure weight and track one’s progress. DrKumo offers a smart weight scale that can measure more parameters than typical scales, such as standard body weight, BMI, bone mass, body fat percentage, BMR, visceral fat, and many more. This is important because, in some instances, fat may be lost while an equivalent amount of muscle was gained, which is a healthier outcome, but leading to no net change in weight, which can confound and frustrate patients who work hard to increase their health. A regular weighing scale would not be able to determine the cause of the net weight result, but a smart scale from DrKumo would be able to show the improvement. Also, because patient data is stored and summarized within the platform, healthcare providers can track their patients’ progress and better streamline weight loss efforts and strategies. By using remote monitoring, the patients can be more consistent with their weigh-ins, and their healthcare providers can be more aware of their patients’ progress. This can help to better tailor the weight loss program to the individual, which ultimately leads to better health outcomes.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Management

COPD is a chronic condition that requires close monitoring to improve the patient’s quality of life. A coordinated care approach that includes oxygen support, tailored maintenance and rescue medications, and patient rehabilitation that is current and partnered with home monitoring for patients like RPM and pulmonary function tests, can greatly improve patient adherence. It may even prevent the occurrence of potentially life-threatening respiratory diseases like COVID-19.

RPM can play a key role in COPD management by allowing healthcare providers to remotely monitor patients’ symptoms and lung function, thus providing timely intervention and treatment adjustments. This remote monitoring can help to prevent exacerbations and hospitalizations, which can have a significant impact on patients’ quality of life. Additionally, RPM can remind patients to take their medications and perform pulmonary function tests regularly, leading to better adherence and improved outcomes.

Asthma Management

RPM can help detect early signs of exacerbations, such as increased coughing, shortness of breath, and changes in lung function, allowing healthcare providers to intervene promptly and adjust treatment as needed. This can help prevent exacerbations and hospitalizations, which has a significantly positive impact on patients’ quality of life. Additionally, RPM can remind patients to take their medications and perform lung function tests regularly, leading to better adherence and improved outcomes.

In conclusion, RPM has been shown to be an effective tool in managing a variety of chronic diseases, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, COPD, and asthma. Additionally, RPM can also be applied to a wide range of other chronic diseases such as heart failure, chronic kidney disease, and mental health disorders. RPM allows for more consistent and frequent monitoring of patient symptoms and vital signs, which can lead to timely interventions and treatment adjustments, ultimately improving patient outcomes and reducing the burden of chronic disease on healthcare systems.

How is DrKumo’s RPM Solution Different from those of Other Remote Patient Monitoring Companies?

DrKumo is a leading provider of Connected Health Technology, known for its real-time continuous RPM solutions and associated highly secure cybersecurity framework. DrKumo’s solutions are HIPAA compliant and certified by URAC, ensuring the highest level of security for patient data, and system effectiveness.

One of the key ways DrKumo stands out from the pack is through its support of disease management programs (DMPs). DrKumo may be the first company in the world to develop an RPM solution specifically tailored to DMPs, allowing for more effective management of chronic conditions.

DrKumo’s RPM technologies are highly scalable and can be utilized in various settings such as chronic care management, acute care, post-operation, and hospital care at home. Its user-friendly solution is powered by state-of-the-art, mobile-enabled, continuous real-time monitoring, and AI-machine learning engine.

DrKumo is committed to revolutionizing healthcare delivery and empowering patients to take better charge of their health. DrKumo’s innovative, collaborative, and technology-driven approach provides effective solutions for both patients and healthcare providers. DrKumo’s goal is to solve the most pressing problems in healthcare and improve health outcomes through customized and extremely effective RPM programs that includes health monitoring and patient satisfaction.