Patient Monitoring

Patient monitoring uses telehealth technologies to collect medical data from patients in one location and electronically transmit that information to health care providers in a different location.

Remote monitoring collects important patient data, such as vital signs, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, and electrocardiograms. This data is then transmitted to providers in timely fashion for appropriate medical decision-making. Patient monitoring data can be transmitted to facilities that include centralized in-hospital monitoring centers, individual health care providers and remote case management facilities.

Patient monitoring can be used in a variety of applications. These include:

• At-home management of patients with chronic conditions.

• Skilled nursing, sub-acute care and senior living facilities.

• Hospital emergency departments and intensive care units.

Patient Monitoring Successes

Monitoring programs can boost access to health care, provide timely alerts to health care providers of changes in patients' medical status, and post impressive improvements in both patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness of chronic disease management programs. For example:

• A 2002 study examined a Veterans Health Administration demonstration project, which featured home monitoring systems and targeted veterans with chronic conditions who were high users of costly medical services. The study compared enrollees' actual use of medical services to their projected usage if they had not taken part in the program, and also compared their actual use to veterans who were not enrolled in the program. The study found a 40% reduction in emergency room visits, a 63% reduction in hospital admissions, a 60% reduction in hospital bed days of care, a 64% reduction in VHA nursing home admissions, and an 88% reduction in nursing home bed days of care. A 2005 follow-up study on the same program, which examined enrollees with chronic heart failure, found dramatic improvements in key health indicators, hospitalization rates, and use of important heart drugs.
• A 2006 study examined Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes who enrolled in a disease management program, and compared them to beneficiaries who received conventional care.  The program included live video counseling sessions and email discussions with nurse case managers, home monitoring of vital signs, with results automatically uploaded to electronic medical records, and patient education Web sites in English and Spanish. The study found that program enrollees reduced their blood sugar levels substantially below those of non-enrollees. Managing blood sugar levels as been found to prevent or substantively reduce the incidence of diabetes-related damage to the eyes, kidneys, nerves, and heart.