Use of remote patient monitoring up by more than 300% since 2021
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Key takeaways:
- Among pulmonologists surveyed, 84.62% reported current use of remote patient monitoring.
- By 2024, 81.8% pulmonologists plan to use this type of monitoring more.
The use of remote patient monitoring among health care providers increased from 20% in 2021 to 81% in 2023, according to survey results from Vivalink.
“Clinicians can be conservative when it comes to new technologies and approaches, but seeing adoption among their peers can provide some level of reassurance and therefore encourage their own adoption,” Jiang Li, PhD, CEO of Vivalink, told Healio.
Vivalink helps connect providers with remote patient monitoring tools for various applications, according to a press release from the company.
With input from 140 providers in the U.S., Vivalink assessed the prevalence of remote patient monitoring, reasons for using it and what providers think about the future of this type of technology.
Prior to the 2023 survey, Vivalink conducted a survey in 2021 and found that 20% of clinicians reported current use of remote patient monitoring. Notably, the 2023 survey showed a 305% increase in use among providers, with 81% of clinicians using remote patient monitoring.
“We were positively surprised at the level of adoption among the clinicians surveyed,” Li told Healio.
More than half of the providers reported using this remote option for cardiac arrhythmia monitoring (65.14%) and chronic conditions monitoring (64.22%).
When asked about using remote patient monitoring in 2024, a majority of current users (84%) responded with hopes to raise their usage by that time, and 77% believe that virtual monitoring will either surpass or be equivalent to in-patient monitoring in the next 5 years.
In terms of remote patient monitoring use among pulmonologists (n = 13), most reported current use (84.62%), with notable percentages of these providers beginning to use these devices prior to 2020, in 2021 or in 2022 (each 27.27%).
Pulmonologists are using remote patient monitoring for several applications, but the most frequent use of it was for chronic condition monitoring (81.82%). Other common uses included cardiac arrythmia monitoring (72.73%), post-chemotherapy monitoring (63.64%), preventing hospitalization (54.55%) and patient assessment both before and after operation (54.55%).
When asked about the number of patients using remote patient monitoring, 63.64% of pulmonologists reported between 301 to 500 patients a year.
With the heightened use of this type of monitoring, it should be noted that 72.7% of pulmonologists said they either saw a significant or small increase in readmissions when using remote patient monitoring. Despite this finding, a majority of pulmonologists (81.8%) plan to increase their use in 2024, and 84.6% think that virtual hospital remote patient monitoring will either surpass or be equal to in-patient monitoring in 5 years.
“To show accurate trending, future surveys should maintain some level of consistency in the questions asked and the target profile but can be expanded to include new developments and insights as the industry evolves,” Li told Healio.
Reference:
- About Vivalink. https://www.vivalink.com/about-vivalink. Accessed Aug. 31, 2023.