How to Improve Outcomes and Exceed Patient Expectations with RPM and IoT
Real-time connections between patients and providers — inside and outside the four walls of hospitals — offer benefits to both. What are the strategic implications?
// By Chintan Prajapati //
Higher consumer expectations, increased digitization, and the Covid-19 pandemic have all contributed to the trend toward monitoring patient health remotely. This new frontier has ushered in remote patient monitoring (RPM), connecting doctors with patients beyond the hospital boundaries, and allowing cost-effective and convenient extension of care. When combined with IoT, even more advanced care is possible.
The ability of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled RPM devices to augment care experiences and facility processes is why experts predict that by 2024, 30 million patients in the U.S. will use RPM tools to consume health care services.
The impact of RPM and IoT on clinical situations and hospital operations (read: the bottom line) is dramatic. As part of a hospital’s overall telehealth strategy, these technologies have changed the way health systems communicate, and have brought several strategic benefits for health care organizations.
These benefits include, but certainly aren’t limited to, improved operational efficiency, reduced cost, proactive care, and rich patient experience. The quality of care is improved with frequent doctor-patient interactions, smart scheduling of appointments, smart allocation of practitioners, critical-condition alerts, and real-time patient data capture.
Has COVID-19 pushed the industry to the tipping point for adopting these technologies?