The healthcare sector has long pined for a transformational milestone that will set it on a different trajectory altogether. While there have been a huge amount of advancements across different subdivisions of this sector, that transformational milestone had managed to elude medical researchers. However, after what was a long tedious wait, the moment of epiphany did arrive, and it arrived in the form of RPM. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) has taken a dominant position in the health industry since the outbreak of the ongoing global pandemic. More than a luxury, RPM has now become somewhat of a necessity, as the transmissible nature of Covid 19 poses a serious threat for not just the affected patient but also for medical professionals taking care of them. While it might look like that the concept of Remote Patient Monitoring is gaining ground just because of Covid 19, the truth is it has been in the pipeline even before this deadly virus stepped into our lives.
As good as it sounds right now; the idea of RPM did face a lot of pushback initially. Many experts argued that the concept doesn’t cover the possibility of patient needing immediate medical attention. Nevertheless, when the urgency of a pandemic struck and overwhelmed the healthcare systems, it suddenly started to look like the best possible option. Michigan’s Metro Health proved that it was rightly so. As an osteopathic teaching hospital, Metro Health serves over 250,000 patients per year across western Michigan. The folks at Metro Health had been mulling over creating a RPM program for two years before Covid 19 came around.
Even though their RPM program is currently functioning on a large scale, they had originally outlined it to mainly focus on limiting re-hospitalization by keeping an eye on high-risk patients after they are discharged. However, Metro Health was fortunately able to transition towards handling a bigger share of patients through biometric and symptom monitoring and many other tools. As per the latest figures, the hospital’s program is boasting an encouraging 95% satisfaction rate, thus further proving the efficacy of what everyone expects to be the next big thing in healthcare.
