According to the CDC, six in ten adults in the United States have a chronic disease, and four in ten have two or more. That puts 86% of health spending in the U.S. attributable to people with chronic diseases or mental health problems, which is not only a burden on patients with these diseases who need constant care, but also a major liability for the nation's healthcare system and its providers. To help manage chronic diseases, telehealth home monitoring is an excellent tool for managing hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, congestive heart failure (CHF), etc.
Patients with comorbidities usually need to track blood glucose levels, blood pressure, nutrition management, etc. every day to ensure that they can maintain and manage their physical conditions well. With telehealth home monitoring, patients can use medical devices at home to obtain vital signs according to regulations. These data can be sent to clinicians in near real time and directly integrated into electronic health records (EHR). This approach enables healthcare providers to have a more comprehensive understanding of patients' health status and improve visibility into when patient data is exceeding the normal range or moving in the wrong direction. As a result, the nursing of patients is simplified, and providers can intervene more quickly, thereby significantly improving the treatment effect of patients and reducing the possibility of readmission. KLAS conducted an investigation on 25 health care organizations, and found that 38% of health care organizations reported a decrease in the number of hospitalizations when running a telehealth home monitoring plan focusing on chronic disease care management, and 17% of medical institutions said that the cost was reduced.
As mentioned above, telehealth home monitoring is not a new product, but so far, it is usually associated with a series of integration and implementation challenges of its own. Organizations need to deal with procurement centers, tablet configuration, peripherals pairing, complex patient setup processes, connectivity barriers, and time spent on technical support. Due to the changes brought by telehealth home monitoring to the existing clinical workflow, some people also oppose the adoption of telehealth home monitoring.
Telehealth home monitoring is not necessarily a complex work, it can be very simple, further remotely contacting any patients with this technology. Through telehealth monitoring equipment, the nursing team receives vital signs and patient data in near real time, manages patients from a single portal, which can be integrated into EHR.
