Remote Patient Monitoring: health care providers reached the same conclusion for themselves and their patients. They found that this technology delivers improvements in the form of better patient outcomes, reduced costs, and the ability to deliver more personalized, patient-centered care at the same time. Reduce workload.
Fortunately, the entire healthcare industry is also enjoying these important benefits. In fact, with large-scale investments coming regularly, the Remote Patient Monitoring market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 3.3% over the next decade. Of course, like any developing technology, RPM has its hurdles, from reimbursement and billing challenges to technical issues and patient compliance.
However, because the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, we cannot help but confront these issues head-on.
What healthcare challenges can Remote Patient Monitoring solve?
Until recently, to diagnose patients or gain insight into their health conditions, healthcare professionals had to rely on (usually independent) testing or their self-reported medical history.
The problem is that the accuracy of these methods depends on the patient’s memory and health at the time of testing. Now, with standard wearable devices such as smartwatches, used in conjunction with a scientifically proven mobile application platform, patient vital signs (such as heart rate, and blood pressure) and electrocardiograms) can be collected and sent to healthcare providers in real time.
This allows clinicians to remotely observe a patient’s health status and quickly recommend necessary interventions or medication adjustments if necessary.
The technology could also help ease the workload of healthcare providers, whose work demands have become increasingly demanding since the Covid-19 pandemic. While hospitals were indeed overwhelmed (especially during the height of the pandemic), RPM has the potential to prevent this same crisis from happening again in the future.
When clinicians can remotely observe a patient’s health status, they can more accurately determine whether hospitalization is needed, preventing hospital overcrowding and burnout.
Unnecessary effort of medical staff. Providing more personalized healthcare and increasing patient engagement also becomes easier with RPM. With a continuous stream of real-time patient data, in certain cases, clinicians can recommend appropriate healthcare approaches, prescribe medications, and make informed decisions about Post-operative care without having to go to the clinic. They can also prioritize their priorities based on a patient’s risk level, which can be determined through their RPM platform.
In addition to more precise patient care, RPM technology helps reduce healthcare costs. It does this by alerting patients and healthcare providers when problems occur or are predicted, allowing for rapid intervention to prevent costly health problems.
Similarly, remote patient monitoring reduces hospital readmissions and unnecessary emergency department visits, thereby easing the financial burden.
What are the challenges of implementing Remote Patient Monitoring?
They prevent companies from adopting innovations that would ultimately benefit them and improve the quality of their care.
The same applies to implementing Remote Patient Monitoring programs. Doctors are very busy and learning new technology can be a daunting task. For this reason, technology companies should focus directly on creating simple mobile applications for RPM programs.
Another challenge is that the accuracy of RPM depends on the patient’s ability or willingness to actively participate in the program. It’s not uncommon for patients to forget to wear or charge their devices, leaving gaps in the data. Or they simply don’t know how to use the device or app properly. All of this jeopardizes the success of the RPM program.
Physicians may also find themselves overwhelmed by the large amount of data that is constantly coming in. Raw or ambiguous data can be difficult or impossible to interpret, especially when providers must monitor many patients remotely, in addition to their regular in-person visits.
Finally, reimbursement for Remote Patient Monitoring services may create barriers to implementation. Medicare and other insurance agencies have specific requirements for patients to qualify for the RPM program. For example, some conditions, such as heart failure, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, may be eligible for reimbursement, while others may not.
And because this is a recently evolving technology, healthcare providers may not have the knowledge or resources to properly carry out these payer mandates. How can technology companies encourage RPM adoption?
With technical challenges posing major barriers to broader Remote Patient Monitoring adoption, tech companies have the ability (and even responsibility) to create platforms that are both simple and intuitive to use.
On the one hand, the RPM platform should integrate with the hospital’s EHR. This will greatly improve care coordination and can reduce administrative workloads (such as tedious filing and data entry). Technology companies should also work to provide training and support for integrating these platforms into new practices to ensure healthcare providers feel comfortable with the product.
Automated data analysis and reporting on mobile platforms is another important aspect to consider. By eliminating the need to interpret data themselves, healthcare providers can make informed decisions based on the data analyzed. This helps them save time while improving patient health outcomes.
RPM benefits healthcare practices of all sizes:
Because Remote Patient Monitoring helps reduce healthcare costs and provider workload while improving patient engagement health causes and outcomes, the playing field has become more level. Now, small private medical facilities can provide the same high level of service as large organizations without having to invest too much.
Smaller firms can then take on more clients without increasing their workload, which helps them maintain their independence.
As technology companies continue to improve their platforms and healthcare providers better understand the benefits of applying this technology to their practices, we will see rapid advances in the quality of healthcare globally.
