Remote Care Spectrum: Tracking / Monitoring / Managing

Remote Care Spectrum: Tracking / Monitoring / Managing

Remote Care Spectrum: Tracking / Monitoring / Managing. Mobile Health Informatics, LLC

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) utilization is increasing and evolving not only because of the extension of the Covid public health emergency or coverage by Medicare reimbursement but because of the realization of clinical and non-clinical RPM benefits:

+ Improving health outcomes and quality of life, accelerating diagnosis, preventing the spread of Hospital-Acquired Infections, reducing the risk of disease transmission, reducing complications, and slowing chronic disease progression through early detection and timely intervention and treatment plan adjustments

+ Optimizing patient experience, including better engagement, convenience, efficiency, control, accuracy, peace of mind, motivation, comfort, availability, travel and wait time, and satisfaction

+ Increasing awareness, education, ownership, proactive management, and compliance among patients and their caregivers

+ Increasing access and equity to primary and specialty care across larger geographies, rural and underserved communities, senior care, and social determinants of health

+ Improving a patient-provider relationship and clinical decisions

+ Reducing the overall pressure and stress on the healthcare system by prioritizing care delivery, reducing the burden of over-scheduled in-person visits, optimizing clinical practitioners' efficiency, freeing up limited inpatient resources, increasing retention, and addressing clinical staff shortages and burnout

+ Reducing the total cost of care for patients over time as a result of decreased utilization of ER visits, hospitalizations, and readmissions

Other benefits:

+ Transforming and bridging healthcare

+ Enabling decentralized clinical trials

+ Tracking post-surgery discharge?of patient recovery

+ Supporting telemedicine and care management programs

+ Preparing to fight off the next pandemic and adverse time

RPM programs employ various connected health devices that deliver healthcare providers faster access to accurate patient data. These devices can be utilized for tracking, monitoring, or managing care for short-term, long-term, or specialized purposes.

Physiological measurement devices include a thermometer, weight scale, pulse oximeter, glucometer, and blood pressure cuff.

Additional devices include a spirometer, ECG heart monitor, and specialized monitors for dementia and Parkinson's disease.

Also available are remote medical scopes such as stethoscopes, dermatoscopy, and otoscopes.?

Digital Health Devices (DHDs) technology includes implantable devices, biometric sensors, patches, wearables, infrared, optic, ultrasonic, smart health watches, and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).

DHDs can remotely collect data from samples of sound, movement, visual, odor, sweat, saliva, movement, visual, and biospecimens.

Future directions and research of DHDs are miniaturizations, low power, less invasive, self-sustain, contactless hassle-free sensors, and Software as a Medical Device (SDM).

RPM is not only for tracking, monitoring, and managing long-term diseases — but it can be utilized for urgent care and acute conditions.

Increasingly, healthcare organizations are setting up hospital-at-home?(H@H) programs, which enable care for acuity conditions at home.?

H@H protocols will provide a wide array of mobile services, including diagnostics, treatments, pharmacy, and mobile health care teams and services.

Telehealth Taxonomy. Image: Health Recovery Solutions (HRS)

H@H technologies will integrate mobile care team visits with virtual care modalities: telehealth, tele-education, patient portal, and telemedicine with RPM, store and forward, and interactive patient care. RPM will support continual real-time monitoring of physiological and non-physiological measurements.

Virtual Care Modalities. Image: Christian Milaster, Ingenium ??

As RPM and H@H programs, technologies, and protocols are developed and integrated, they form patient-centric health care. "The model of in-home care is expanding beyond the hospital and other facility-based settings and into the home."

Next, see the RPM Evolution Roadmap at?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/rpm-evolution-roadmap-yair-rajwan-ms-dsc