Remote patient monitoring expected to rise

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has been a watershed moment in the development of remote patient monitoring (RPM) as physicians and health care facilities have had to rethink how they provide care.

A new survey from VivaLNK show that the pandemic has been a period of rapid growth and advancement in RPM among hospitals and health clinics positioning it for accelerated growth in the coming years. Of the survey respondents, 43 percent say they believe that RPM adoption will be on par with in-patient monitoring in five years, while 35 percent say they believe it will surpass in-patient monitoring in that same time-frame, according to a news release.

More than half (55 percent) of respondents say that they are using or plan to use RPM for their COVID-19 patient monitoring, while 72 percent of respondents say that patients are hesitant to visit a hospital or physician’s office in-person during the pandemic, the release says.

A further 20 percent of respondents reported having already adopted RPM and another 23 percent saying they plan to adopt it within the next 12 months. An astounding 90 percent of respondents say that continuous, 24-hour remote data collection is important when compared to episodic data, the release says.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the demand for remote patient monitoring, as evidenced by the rapid adoption we have seen over the past year,” Jiang Li, CEO of VivaLNK, says in the release. “Even with the increased adoption, we are aware that there are still challenges in the market. Proactively addressing these challenges will allow us to provide the best and most cost-effective solution for RPM adoption.”

Funding seems to be the biggest challenge when it comes to adopting RPM with 55 percent of respondents saying that reimbursement is essential to the overall success of RPM. Another 65 percent of respondents say that electronic health record integration will be key to widespread adoption, according to the release.