Remote Patient Evaluation (RPE) Is Ready for Primetime
To date, remote patient monitoring (RPM) has used digital technologies to collect health data from patients in one place and transmit that information securely to case managers somewhere else. This approach has proven useful for caregivers to prioritize follow-ups and monitor compliance as they have easy access to real-time data such as weight, glucose levels, blood pressure, heart rate, air flow, and even data trends measured by patients in the comfort of their homes. Now, thanks to telemedicine, Remote Patient Evaluation (RPE)—the next evolutionary step for RPM—is putting the “care” in home healthcare.
Today, with the addition of a telemedicine component, RPE is taking remote care to the next level by bringing providers into patients’ homes to evaluate symptoms and discuss treatment and intervention options as needed. By pairing RPM with swyMed’s offering for RPE, patients are now able to have reliable, meaningful encounters with providers without leaving their homes. This eliminates the need for hospital “check-ins,” increases access for those with mobility challenges, and helps to stretch scarce physician resources without further stretching the physicians themselves.
swyMed’s offering for Remote Patient Evaluation, which includes advanced video technologies and mobile broadband through the DOT Telemedicine Backpack, allows the care team to see and interact with the patient in a real-time video encounter, complete with data from additional equipment such as a stethoscope, otoscope, or pulse oximeter.
But RPE is not just the next step for RPM. The potential savings of cost, time, travel, and improved patient convenience make RPE an approach that will change the landscape of stroke response, power Mobile Integrated Health (MIH), community paramedicine, and more.
Remote patient monitoring was the first step, but being able to deliver a meaningful, real-time provider-patient interaction at the point of need establishes Remote Patient Evaluation as the new standard of care for innovative organizations who want to keep their patient populations healthy and make more effective use of the resources they already have in place.
