RPM technology is a smart innovation for experienced practitioners

Running a medical practice is like running a baseball team. Skills, talents, equipment, facilities and intuition are required. But managers should also include technology expertise in their competencies. It is not enough for a doctor to be a good doctor or a good business person. Trading tools are evolving. The advantage is that some tools can have a significant impact on the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes without costing practitioners undue costs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to issues such as patient access to care, accelerating existing technologies and innovative options such as telemedicine and remote patient monitoring (RPM).

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RPM is not new, but its devices and technology continue to evolve and improve. If RPM is expected to save the U.S. healthcare system his $200 billion over the next 25 years, as Deloitte research shows, what impact will it have on certain practices?

RPM offers a more effective method of care using today’s technology, but the initial costs of equipment, training, process adaptations, etc. are high, even though capital expenditures are often lower than traditional medical devices. increase. Implementing new technologies is not a quick process, so existing systems must be carried over while new systems are introduced in phases.

For medicine, the benefits are manyfold. Successful use of RPM technology eliminates the need for patients to drive to and from the clinic, allowing appointments to be managed on a tighter schedule. RPM also improves speed and access to data. For example, vital signs and other physiological information can be automatically obtained from a patient at home and sent to the doctor’s office with little patient or healthcare provider intervention, thus improving both the speed and accuracy of the data. is improved.

By providing acute care for specific incidents and conditions, RPM can facilitate early patient discharge from hospitals and inpatient facilities if the condition can be effectively monitored from home.

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There is no denying that healthcare is a business. Clinics and care facilities need to treat patients efficiently in order to be profitable, so optimizing physician time is critical. Even with RPM, it can be difficult to justify the return on investment for replacing existing processes with new technology. However, using RPM to add new revenue streams may be economically attractive for providers. For example, cardiologists have used Holter monitors for decades, yet multiple patient and technician visits are still required to download and review the data. Holter may be the best choice for some patients, but adding the option of mobile his telemetry-based heart monitoring would add a more attractive service option for more patients. .

McKinsey & Company reported that in 2021, “$250 billion of U.S. healthcare spending could be shifted to virtual or virtual-enabled care.” This is especially true among patients who have grown up with technology. But for virtual care to go beyond video calling and telemedicine, clinicians will need to identify compelling applications for using new technologies.

Think about when computers first became mainstream. It’s conceptually great to be told that a computer can do a myriad of novel tasks. But realistically, it doesn’t matter unless one of these features meets a compelling need. Using a computer to create a spreadsheet cut his time to create a book from 15 hours to his 3, justifying the cost of equipment, software, and training.

RPMs are similar. For example, to monitor blood pressure, a patient is often asked to take measurements manually throughout the day for several days. A problem with conventional blood pressure cuffs is the burden placed on patients to remember to read and record information, often resulting in incomplete or sporadic data. The use of medical wearables that can automatically and continuously acquire blood pressure readings will improve the accuracy and reliability of data, improving diagnosis and treatment.

Continuous monitoring of RPM provides an enormous amount of raw data. A good application should present the clinician with streamlined data that is contextually applicable. Continuous RPM monitoring yields an enormous amount of data, but with the right software and algorithms, the data can be made useful to clinicians without being overwhelmed.

Jiang Li is the founder and CEO of Vivalink, a provider of connected healthcare technology for patient monitoring and telemedicine.