During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients were fearful of going to the doctor. However, it became even more crucial to monitor their health during this time. This is where remote patient monitoring (RPM) became vitally important to the virtual health strategy of every payer and provider. RPM uses digital technology to collect data on symptoms, medicines, therapy, and biometrics from patients who are not physically present in a healthcare facility, typically through the use of an app on the patient’s phone. The software then securely communicates that data to healthcare experts for evaluation and suggestions.

Patients can benefit from increased access to healthcare, greater quality of treatment, and more support and peace of mind, among other things. Healthcare providers, on the other hand, receive a more in-depth view of their patients’ health data, which may lead to fewer readmissions, improved patient outcomes, and recurring income.

RPM has the potential to benefit both patients and healthcare practitioners. Having said that, healthcare professionals who want to establish and manage an RPM program should do so with caution. There are several types of hazards and blunders that might arise. As a result, let’s take a deep dive into the top four RPM pitfalls you can avoid with the program:

  • Too Many Resources for Patients to Use

When patients have to manage multiple interfaces, gadgets, and tracking mechanisms, it becomes burdensome for them to have to manage monitoring their health, thereby not providing an accurate picture to their care nurse. Health leaders can make digital care more accessible and understandable by providing patients with a single interface that manages all of their requirements. Whether a patient is managing diabetes, heart disease, or another chronic illness, having a single location for all of their health information allows them to actively engage in their care. Read about how electronic patient portals are becoming redundant. 

  • Impersonal Clinician-Patient Interactions

Electronic health records (EHRs) placed a screen and computer between physicians and patients in the exam room, severing a sacred bond. Telemedicine may also wreak havoc on this connection, since this new screen may increase existing access disparities. Recent research discovered that individuals over the age of 65 had the lowest odds of using telehealth, while Black and Hispanic patients had lower probabilities than their White or Asian counterparts.

Facilitating equitable access might involve a variety of actions such as giving digital help and language interpretation, lending patients essential gear, and providing Wi-Fi connection. Adequate language interpretation continues to be a serious problem, owing in part to price and availability. As financial demands on providers increase, a need for innovative compensation techniques, such as cost-based reimbursement and inclusion of linguistic requirements in potential payment models, is necessary.

  • Complicated Technology 

Patients should be allowed to connect biometric devices with their health management platform by health plans and doctors. For example, if a patient has a glucometer gadget, it should be simple to link it to their digital health app or platform to sync vital data. This allows the patient to follow their blood sugar levels without having to manually enter data into the app. Integrating with a wide range of devices and manufacturers raises the possibility of a patient engaging with RPM and makes digital care more accessible.

As some gadgets are costly or difficult to use, providing patients with a variety of integration choices assures more accessibility and engagement with the solution. To keep members engaged in a digital health platform, health plans and doctors should incorporate RPM data into each patient’s daily routine, such as making a daily checklist for patients that includes medicine reminders, biometric check-ins, and a daily objective. Providing articles that are simple to read and encourage individuals to advocate for their own health and care can also be beneficial. 

  • Unnecessary Overload of Work

EHR digitized notes and labs made information more easily accessible and shared in a data revolution in healthcare. However, it has rapidly taken over the days and evenings of healthcare workers, with some doctors spending more than half of their workdays on the EHR. If not carefully managed, the proliferation of telehealth could similarly reshape clinicians’ workdays by adding virtual visits on top of a full slate of existing clinical responsibilities or allowing duplicate information and/or work requests to flow in from multiple channels if systems aren’t interoperable.

Many medical centers have made progress taming the expanding workload by scheduling dedicated virtual visit sessions for primary care providers rather than adding them on top of a full workday, improving telemedicine efficiency by admitting patients into virtual exam rooms, taking histories, and notifying providers when their patients are ready to be seen. They also make certain that interdisciplinary teams are included in the delivery of virtual care. Furthermore, FastCheck visits allow patients to come in before or after a telehealth visit for a 15-minute session for vitals, labs, or other treatment that cannot be given electronically. To gain the benefits of telemedicine while avoiding an unwarranted increase in physician responsibilities, continued operational innovation will be required. Read about how AI-driven healthcare data management impacts the future of healthcare.

At Acuma Health, we aim to provide our patients with real-time engagement of both their care and data. We also foster personalized, genuine and professional relationships between our team and our patients with easy to use technology. For more information and insightful updates, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.