Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Proof of RPM Benefit Emerges


The proof of the pudding is in the eating, or so the saying goes.   For insurance companies and governments, they will reimburse if the product can show effectiveness.  As detailed in our report on Advanced Remote Patient Monitoring (http://www.kaloramainformation.com/Advanced-Remote-Patient-7450566/)   These developments will drive implementation of new systems. 

 Numerous studies in the United States and Europe have proven the cost benefits of remote patient monitoring (RPM), despite initial costs to implement.  The Home-Care Management Systems study was partially sponsored by the European Commission under the Trans-European Network initiative.  The study, known as TEN-HMS, was the world’s first large-scale, randomized prospective telemonitoring trial.  The study showed that the use of home-based telemonitoring reduced the number of hospital days by 26% and led to an overall cost savings of 10% compared with nurse telephone support.  Home telemonitoring also increased both patient survival and patient satisfaction. 

Due to the initial expense of telehomecare, Telemedicine, and telemonitoring, several groups have conducted, or are conducting, studies of the effectiveness and benefits.  Constant monitoring and use of alarms that warn of results outside normal parameters for a patient’s condition often allows a patient and his or her provider to immediately react to a health problem before it becomes serious enough to require emergency room service or hospital admission. Authors of a 2010 remote patient monitoring study assessing costs from heart failure reported that cost savings favored remote patient monitoring. Costs saved per patient fell in the range of $400 to $1,300.

 Another study[1] concerning asthma patient self-monitoring using smartphones indicated that there was no cost saving or improvement of care for this group. This suggests that there are some instances where remote monitoring has a significant advantage and some situations where there are none. The advantages in remote monitoring are stronger in more involved care such as with heart failure patients, or diabetes.  

In the United States, a study by Noel et al. (2004) showed that the use of telemedicine added $1,666 to costs during a six-month study.  However, overall health care costs decreased by 58% for the group of patients receiving telehomecare.  According to a Wall Street Journal report, annual savings from remote monitoring could amount to as much as $10.1 billion for U.S residents with congestive heart
 failure; $6.1 billion for patients with diabetes; and $4.9 billion for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446569