Remote patient monitoring devices have become an integral part of many clinical workflows in 2024. Working in tandem with physicians, these tools enable the empowerment of not just physicians but patients, family members/caregivers, and other parties involved in the care process as well. They bring everyone to the table, allowing for a joint approach to healthcare in a way that results in far-reaching benefits for all. Today, we take out the microscope to zoom in on just how RPM technologies help to empower health across various levels.
Breaking The Geographical Divide
Geographical barriers are one of the biggest hurdles in terms of healthcare empowerment. They hinder access and widen the divide between care providers and patients. Remote patient monitoring devices are making distance less of an issue, enabling real-time data collection with fewer doctor visits.
Physicians can obtain the data they require from patients around the clock, without having to check in with patients. This frees up time and expenses, thus allowing care quality to improve without necessarily adding to the patient’s cost burden.
RPM devices and audio-visual communication tools allow for patient-physician interactions to grow and thrive from afar. They bridge the gap, more so in rural communities, where the number of healthcare facilities is typically overrun by the size of the patient load.
Allowing Patients & Physicians To Spot Triggers In Real Time
Certain environmental and lifestyle factors can cause adverse reactions in patients with chronic conditions.
It becomes possible to pinpoint exact causes or aggravators more accurately with remote patient monitoring instruments such as:
- Blood pressure cuffs
- Cardiac monitors
- Smart beds
- Pulse oximeters
- Glucometers and so on
With real-time data to work with, it becomes easier for patients and their physicians to match an aggravation in disease symptoms with certain activities or objects in their daily routine. This ensures more optimal disease management, with the ability to accommodate changing triggers and allow for continually positive medical intervention.
Empowering Healthcare Through Affordability
The high expenses associated with contemporary healthcare solutions have proven prohibitive for patients and their kin. A report by the US KFF paints a grim picture, estimating that financial difficulties get in the way of healthcare access for approximately 50% of American families.
Remote patient monitoring devices, in association with the larger digital health ecosystem, can alleviate a couple of healthcare processes that inflate bills for patients unnecessarily. A couple of ways that RPM devices could play a part in making healthcare more affordable include:
- Achieving fewer administrative tasks, which is tagged as the #1 driver of extreme care costs
- Reducing the need for laboratory examinations and tests
- Reducing travel expenses
- Encouraging personal responsibility thus leads to fewer adverse- and costly- health events
With USA Today pointing to a 53% decline in wage growth in 2022, the role of RPM devices in lowering healthcare costs will be critical this year.
Raising The Levels Of Health Literacy
Up to 90% of adults suffer from various levels of health illiteracy, according to a report by the NNLM. Yet this is an important aspect of health empowerment, as it allows patients to take on more active roles in their own care.
RPM delivers improved health literacy by giving patients direct access to their medical history and data. The technology also typically provides a direct channel of contact to physicians or experts, allowing care recipients to seek clarification, feedback, and other means of support they may require concerning their health.
Elevated health literacy ensures patients have the know-how to better handle:
- Medication dosage
- Side effects
- Symptoms
- Treatment plans, etc.
Perhaps importantly, RPM devices raise health literacy to the point that patients know how to find relevant medical information online, discern it, and then put that data to good use.
Making Care Coordination Flawless
Many care processes, more so those that involve several specialists managing a single case, are disjointed. This is largely brought about by inconsistencies in data, as well as delays in information transformation, among other challenges. The National Institutes of Health estimates that nearly 4 in 10 patients experience problems with their care coordination. Some consequences of that have been:
- Ineffective care
- Additional patient complications
- Care delay
- Patient anxiety
RPM devices address some of the barriers to care coordination, the largest of which revolves around data. With the ability to collect patient data, filter it into an online repository, and synchronize this information FOR different players, different healthcare collaborators can present a more united front. This empowers collaborative health care that’s more diagnostically accurate and timely.
Giving Mental Wellness More Attention
The mind is a powerful tool, more so when it comes to chronic illness. Individuals struggling with their mental health tend to experience more aggravated symptoms, with NIH studies showing a correlation between poor mental wellness and chronic illness deterioration.
Therefore, empowering patients should not just be a matter of physical wellness but mental health as well. RPM devices are enabling a more holistic care process that looks after both physical health and mental welfare.
Here are a few ways that remote patient monitoring devices allow patients to take better charge of their mental well-being:
- Physicians can track biomarkers related to the patient’s psychological condition and intervene accordingly
- Patients enjoy peace of mind and less uncertainty with constant connectivity to healthcare professionals
- Physicians can also track behavioral patterns that might indicate patient distress
RPM wearables are fast becoming a patient’s mental wellness companion. They bring up mental health challenges that are notoriously ignored by legacy healthcare technologies, ensuring care that leaves no facet of the patient’s wellness behind.
Everyone Deserves A Healthy Future
And now, your facility can give it to them by tapping into the power of remote patient monitoring devices. Beyond empowering health, the right technology can also empower your revenue, expanding your financial net and ensuring your care facility gets away from being in the red to generously in the green. Putting a whole new meaning to the phrase health is wealth, Aura Health Solution’s RPM technology can lay the foundations for a more successful future for your care facility. We can improve patient outcomes and provide healing for your workflow. Contact us today and, together, we’ll empower your healthcare and take it to the next level.
is Aura’s proprietary digital healthcare platform
