Ten things to know before launching a remote patient monitoring program

Curious about launching a remote patient monitoring program at your practice? Here’s a compelling reason to start one: remote patient monitoring costs approximately $1,500 a year per patient, while a single hospital admission can cost thousands of dollars.

Katie Nunn, CEO of Bright Ideas Medical Consulting, defines remote patient monitoring as collecting data from patients and receiving the data at the physician practice remotely. Examples of data collected from patients include weight, activity level, blood pressure, respiration, and blood-glucose levels, said Dunn during an April 16 session at MGMA20 | The Operations Conference, which took place virtually. Nunn counselled that this is a passive approach to monitoring, which means the physician office won’t be notified if the patient’s heart rate increases rapidly. Rather, it’s likely the practice will deploy a nurse who monitors patients’ vital signs on a daily basis using a dashboard.