How RPM and Chronic Diseases Management Help in Improving Patient Outcomes

Chronic disease management also known as chronic care management enables patients to live a better life having a long-term disease by minimizing the disease development and treating the disease symptoms. Chronic care management needs a holistic strategy that focuses on the entire health profile of the patient as well as specific diseases. 

The chronic care management approach considers factors like environment, lifestyle, and heredity, with the goals of patients’ health regulation and minimizing the intensity of the disease symptoms.

According to healthcare industry executives, remote patient monitoring (RPM) has emerged as an intriguing approach for controlling chronic health issues and should be included in your chronic illness management program.

What is Chronic Disease Management?

The World Health Organization defines chronic disease as being of long duration and generally slow in progression and it does not pass from one person to another. Chronic health disorders may persist for years or even for a lifetime and are very difficult to manage. Chronic diseases include diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, arthritis, asthma, Crohn’s disease, and others.

It is quite difficult to manage chronic diseases for a variety of reasons. Chronic disease may require long periods of observation or care whereas healthcare systems are typically better suited to providing acute episodic care. Furthermore, patients having various chronic diseases may have multiple healthcare professionals working with them which leads to complications if there is a lack of adequate care coordination between doctors.

As mentioned above, however, chronic disease management is difficult and offers numerous advantages for patients. For instance, patients have a better quality of life and health status. This, in turn, leads to a better quality of life for the patients and better mental health. Last but not least, chronic disease management also reduces the frequency of hospitalization and thus makes it possible to attend to the patient more economically within a longer duration.

How RPM supports Chronic Disease Management

RPM is a valuable technique for improving patient outcomes. By incorporating this RPM technique into chronic disease management, then healthcare professionals may address many of these issues and provide more proactive, patient-centered treatment plans.

In addition, patients were given reminders on when to take their medication, daily questionnaires, and educational videos that enhanced their understanding of their conditions. This RPM program enabled patients to have better control of their chronic illness, thus reducing the rates of hospital readmissions and ER visits to the state average.

Researches which are done during the COVID-19 pandemic like the “Telehealth Impact Study” reveal that patients and providers intend to keep on utilizing telehealth & RPM after the pandemic. The providers and patients interviewed on the usage of telehealth solutions reported high satisfaction levels regarding telehealth and a positive outlook regarding future utilization.

Telehealth and RPM technology enable patients to have a proper education regarding their disease and treatment plan, making them more engaged in their medical conditions.

Improving patients’ health literacy allows them to manage their symptoms and medicines in a better way and also helps in making educated decisions and interacting with their healthcare professionals. Furthermore, patient engagement options like virtual visits, text messages, and instructions through educational videos help patients stay connected with their care team.

RPM also allows monitoring of patients’ vitals daily even if the clinician is not around to do it physically. RPM devices include parameters like blood pressure, pulse rate, levels of CO2, and many others; all this can be obtained without patients having to travel long distances to the healthcare facility. These readings are wirelessly conveyed to the health care professionals, provide a better picture of the patient’s status, and inform the clinician if changes in the patient’s status could be potentially problematic and require intervention.

Better patient outcomes with RPM

Chronic disease management helps people restore control of their lives and enhance their quality of life. While there may be no permanent cure for any health condition, chronic illness management enables patients to live their lives to the fullest while assisting healthcare professionals in providing high-quality care.

RPM is helpful in that clinicians can track the changes in the patient’s condition and prevent the symptoms from getting worse by giving necessary medication. RPM also can help to decrease healthcare expenses, as it provides the providers with detailed information about the patient’s conditions, and they can exclude the interventions that may be costly. 

Tags:

You may also like