Remote patient monitoring: Realizing potential

A firmer finger on the pulse

Rapid technological transformation is increasingly common in the health ecosystem. Patients recognize the health benefits of technology-enhanced care, allowing healthcare professionals (HCPs) and patients to keep a firmer finger on the pulse with closer health monitoring to improve care and outcomes. While openness to healthcare technology adoption is high, the technologies used today still yield largely descriptive insights, like identifying disease symptoms. Technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud are set to transform healthcare delivery from that descriptive ecosystem to one where care is predictive, enabling proactive behavior and disease management and moving towards health maintenance. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a critical component of that future.

RPM adoption: Untapped market

While most physicians have some experience in using RPM, use is limited to just one in 10 patients to date—which applies across all study geographies and in both oncology and neurology. Given that eight out of 10 physicians expect to increase their use of RPM going forward, adoption is likely to grow fast. Physicians expect that RPM use will double in the next five years and 87 percent of physicians say RPM will be a key part of the patient experience in the future.

The benefit of RPM

Today, RPM’s perceived benefit is early detection of therapeutic side effects. However, our research shows, physicians believe with increased RPM maturity, the benefit will shift to improved patient outcomes and increased quality of life.

RPM in the cloud

The majority of physicians support cloud-based RPM data storage which offers an opportunity to further advance RPM. Transitioning RPM data storage to the cloud means data would be available to physicians at any time—independent of device or location. The flexibility to share the data beyond current caregiver and institution will become more important as healthcare goes increasingly virtual. The cloud also facilitates better RPM integration, scaling and evolution over time. However, the majority of physicians told us they need clear guidance on data ownership and appropriate data security measures in order to support RPM in the cloud.

Life sciences unique role in driving RPM’s potential

We found the HCP community’s limited awareness of RPM and its potential benefits is—by a large margin—the single biggest barrier to adoption. Physicians also told us they want clinical evidence showing the value of RPM solutions.

Driving adoption is only possible if RPM is a key part of the conversation with HCPs, reinforced by clear clinical evidence of RPM’s value.

There are three reasons why life sciences companies are uniquely positioned to increase use of RPM.

1. They are in a constant dialogue with HCPs
2. They have the expertise to develop clinical evidence
3. They have deep disease and therapy insights.

These elements will help drive awareness, adoption and the design of relevant tools. Life sciences companies are well positioned to help make RPM a clinical mainstay.

*We recognize RPM has been inconsistently defined by various sources, for the purposes of this survey we have narrowed the scope of our definition of RPM as stated above.