In recent years, we’ve seen a significant amount of investment in the telehealth space—$3 billion this year and projected to reach $25 billion by 2025. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its widespread quarantines and lockdowns, has given telemedicine its moment to shine after years of under-fulfilled promise.
Read more: How AI-Enabled Wearables Are Changing the Way Healthcare Diagnoses Are Conducted
Telehealth, or remote monitoring, refers to healthcare services provided through wearable devices, apps, videos, artificial intelligence, videos, and, of course, telephones. Telehealth profoundly expands the functionalities of Care Management. In healthcare, remote monitoring provides more thorough and efficient interaction, which is also more relaxed and intimate.
According to the Pew Research center, 92% of American adults now have a smartphone and they depend on it. Many prefer sending health data via this device to their healthcare provider rather than visiting the doctor’s office. On the other hand, the remote providers find this exchange of data very helpful in improving health outcomes for their patients.
Remote monitoring enables healthcare providers to care for more patients at a lower cost while also experience less burnout.
With the rising popularity of remote care comes the need for more effective remote monitoring solutions. And, that’s when we need consumer wearable devices, reports MedTechIntelligence.
In recent years, we’ve seen a proliferation of high-quality consumer-grade sensors that can gauge health data such as heart rate and blood pressure and are incorporated into wearables like smartwatches, smart glasses, earbuds, and smart rings. These devices can accumulate patient’s physiological data, which is then transmitted to a data repository, where it is stored and checked for any abnormality. Thus, any detection of disorder in a patient’s vitals will be reported to the patient’s doctors and/or hospital in real-time to act on quickly and prevent a number of problems, such as a sudden heart attack. Technologies are capable of providing patients physiological data from their locations to physicians anywhere in real-time, therefore, enabling remote remediation. For example, data such as blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure can be measured via wearable devices and transmitted from the patient’s locations to their doctors in real-time.
Traditional medical devices, due to complex setup, fall short of inspiring the kind of passion that can drive patient adoption and adherence. It is possible to make medical-grade lifestyle devices by mixing the capabilities of both medical and consumer-grade manufacturers. These devices can be used in remote care, where caregivers can keep track of their patients in real-life to improve the quality of care, while patients are empowered to improve their health.
To build devices that meet the needs of remote care and make them popular among both patients and providers, manufacturers must focus on 4 main areas: Integrity, distribution, privacy, and adherence.
