23 Jul The Growing Ubiquity of Remote Patient Monitoring
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the limits and shortcomings of the global health system and brought the immense significance of Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) to the very fore. What began perhaps as simple X-ray images being sent over telephone wires in Pennsylvania in 1948, seems to have easily supplanted its own effectiveness, usage, and applications in the healthcare industry.
Although governments and health systems worldwide have been focusing on RPM for a long time – the US government (an early adopter) launched a telehealth monitoring programme in 2003, the UK NHS has been collaborating with care providers and tech players since it started the Test Beds initiative in 2016 – the current shift towards RPM might just help nudge it over the doldrums.
Advances in technology have facilitated a deluge of devices while asynchronous methodologies have moved beyond just monitoring basic vital signs. Simple wearables, smartphone apps, connected cameras, optical sensors, ingestible sensors/smart tattoos, etc. help track a whole range of health conditions – from simple medication reminders to complex tech-enabled assessments of kidney injury or risk of sepsis. Fortified with Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), AI, and predictive analytics, these devices can even identify deterioration in condition and measure early warning scores for high-risk patients.
The ability to monitor, and in many cases treat, patients with long term conditions at home has been a boon to help alleviate pressures on overwhelmed global health systems, allowing the necessary wiggle room to focus on more urgent care inside hospitals. Today, RPM-based virtual wards are effectively monitoring vital signs for patients recovering from COVID-19 at home, obviating both the need to block critical hospital beds as well as the risk of transmission.
A burgeoning global elderly population, the consequent need for long-term care and having vital hospital beds unblocked, coupled with significant cost savings for providers and government will continue to power the demand for RPM solutions for years. With just 18% of global health consumers having experienced some form of virtual care, much of the territory is still uncharted. However, providers will need to build interoperable RPM solutions, while payers – both government and private – will need to ease reimbursement hurdles to fuel RPM adoption globally.
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