Remote Patient Monitoring, or RPM, is an enterprise healthcare solution to track and assess clinical data of a patient at a distance. Digital technologies are used to collect and electronically transmit medical and other health information – typically from the comfort of the patient’s home to healthcare providers. In this way, RPM devices can help patients battle chronic illness or monitor post-operative healing.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, remote patient monitoring solutions hit their stride, enabling patients to monitor their own vitals and automatically provide this information to their physician without a trip to a medical facility. And around the same time, changes that allow Medicare reimbursement for RPM (via new CPT codes) encouraged providers to embrace new technologies that expand their reach to all patients regardless of location.
RPM tools are increasingly accessible to the general public – like this article on pulse oximeters– even without needing to see a doctor. This may prove to be their biggest value: helping people stay healthy, enabling seniors and the disabled to age gracefully in their own homes, and perhaps even reducing the overall burden on hospitals.