By: Cambridge consultants
March 28, 2017
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) has seen exponential growth in recent years,2 boosted further by the widespread adoption of consumer wellbeing monitoring and, more recently, its subsequent convergence with long-term healthcare monitoring in the home and other non-clinical environments.
Initially aimed at exercise monitoring, wellness devices, including fitness tracking, sleep optimisation, stress management and home monitoring of elderly and other vulnerable population groups, have grown in scope to support users in broader lifestyle improvements. RPM in these environments can be as simple as a watch that can detect a seizure and send a signal to a centralised patient care facility, or a necklace with a button that activates a call for help following a fall by the user. Similarly, dementia patients can be helped by wearing a GPS watch tracking their location, in cases where they become lost or disoriented.
More sophisticated systems are also proving to be effective healthcare support tools by using data aggregation from a variety of health and wellbeing devices, combined with analysis and artificial intelligence. Tactio, a Canadian digital health provider, offers a configurable smartphone app-based data management platform, that aims to shift care from the hospital to the home. The platform helps in managing patients’ healthcare goals, such as weight loss, diabetes management or cholesterol reduction, by tracking and analysing factors such as weight, blood pressure, activity, diet and blood glucose levels. The data can be entered manually or via a variety of connected medical and wellbeing devices, including medical and consumer-grade wearables. Not only a data aggregator, it sends messages to the patient throughout the day to manage key health factors and nudge behaviour at home, such as prompts to take exercise or maintain a healthier diet. All of this can be monitored and subsequently tailored by the physician.