Medical treatment and research have long been plagued by the problem of inaccurate patient data outside of a medical facility. While patients may try hard to accurately record all kinds of information for physicians, they often fail to note important details or try to reconstruct data after the fact from memory. The result is unreliable data, and unfortunately, home visits by healthcare professionals or patients coming to health centers to record reliable data are costly. Also worth noting, patients often either minimize or exaggerate symptoms, consequently neglecting needed followup or over-using a clinician’s time.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are proving to be a perfect answer for remote monitoring – they’re relatively inexpensive, convenient, reliable, and, most importantly, easy to implement. The connected devices can send real-time data to clinicians, providing a far more accurate view of what’s really going on with a patient.
IoT can play a crucial role in remote monitoring across the spectrum: wellness, prevention, post-discharge followups, and chronic condition management.
Post-discharge followups
Let’s look at patients with congestive heart failure. These folks spend a lot of time in the hospital, usually because they need medication adjustments that don’t happen when they should. Often, that’s because symptoms noticeable to patients don’t happen until things are going seriously awry. Early warning signs, like weight gain, are often ignored or just not noticed by patients.
But remote monitoring gives clinicians a window into how the patient is really faring at home. A “smart” weight scale – with the ability to send data to the physician’s EHR – can alert caregivers to fluid retention, an early sign of deteriorating condition. If the patient forgets to step on the scale, caregivers can send a text or make a phone call to remind the patient. If the scale shows fluid buildup, the physician can review the patient’s meds, check to see if the patient is taking the medication, or take other actions as appropriate. The key here is the early warning.
A small study involving 24 recently discharged heart-failure patients split the group into 12 who were followed via remote monitoring and telehealth visits and 12 who received standard office care.1 In the group that was monitored remotely and by telehealth, only one was readmitted within six months. In the control group, seven were readmitted during that time. Clearly, remote monitoring and telehealth made a difference in the outcomes.
Chronic disease coaching also pays off
Telehealth technology, remote biometric monitoring, biomathematics, health coaching, and patient engagement are proving to be powerful tools in the fight to improve chronic-care outcomes. Now caregivers can be there with patients when they need them the most, with devices acting as remote coaching tools.
With technology, caregivers can help patients make better choices. Even if the patient doesn’t reach an optimal state, better choices can delay the onset of disabling complications and the need for expensive treatments. For a healthcare organization that is reimbursed under an outcomes-based contract, telehealth, remote monitoring, and coaching are far cheaper than dialysis or amputations – two common results for uncontrolled diabetes. As healthcare moves toward more value-based payment systems, the ROI on this technology will become ever clearer.
Research and development
For researchers, availability of accurate, continuous medical data is very useful. When they can mine accurate medical data for patients outside of the medical setting, they will be able to better identify patterns and biomarkers that tell us how some diseases occur and what treatments are most effective. Clinical trials are expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the “quality data” promise of IoT-enabled remote monitoring.
Integration with health systems is key
To make connected devices truly useful, the data has to be integrated with the clinicians’ usual workflows. Physicians and other primary caregivers have little time to waste. If the data is readily accessible and the results are actionable, they will use connected devices frequently. It’s a simple matter of time and habit.
This means device manufacturers and healthcare organizations have to think clearly about how these devices, and the data they produce, can be effectively integrated into workflows – and that means integration into core systems like EMRs, HIEs, and care-management platforms. It isn’t a difficult problem, but it does require attention to detail. Similarly, overcoming issues around data security, device calibrations, and regulatory requirements becomes equally important for the mainstream adoption of these remote-monitoring models.
As the Internet of Things grows – and our analytics capability follows – we’ll find more ways to use data from all kinds of everyday objects.
And the universe of connected devices will be the next source of important medical breakthroughs.
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