In 2024 non-communicable or chronic diseases were responsible for 43 million deaths globally. This has led healthcare organisations to adopt technological solutions such as IoT connected devices to remotely monitor patients to reduce the burden on healthcare staff and decrease the need for hospital visits. These kinds of solutions see healthcare organisations collaborating with technology companies to use remote monitoring solutions for virtual patient care, without patients needing to visit a medical facility.
This blog discusses various types of remote healthcare monitoring devices, used to monitor coronary, pulmonary, and diabetes problems and more. For more information on remote healthcare monitoring, check our recent report on the topic: Healthcare Monitoring: 378 million devices expected by 2034, promoting health management and remote monitoring of patients.
Millions of people worldwide suffer from chronic conditions such as asthma and cardiovascular diseases. Managing these patients places a significant burden on healthcare systems including the need for healthcare personnel, patient bed capacity, and rising medical costs associated with round-the-clock patient monitoring.
Using remote healthcare monitoring devices reduces this burden by enabling clinical-grade monitoring of patients without those patients needing to attend a medical facility. For example, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in the UK started a remote monitoring virtual ward service in November 2023 and saved 2,915 hospital bed days as a result. Patients regularly share their vitals such as blood pressure, respiration rate and oxygen saturation levels from home with healthcare staff who respond when required. The success of the scheme prompted the Trust to expand the coverage from six to fourteen specialties including emergency surgery, cardiology, vascular and oncology, with some specialties in development stage such as urology and heart failure. Another NHS Trust Hospital used Current Health’s AI-enabled wearable devices to monitor discharged patients’ vitals such as respiration, oxygen saturation, pulse, temperature, and movement and achieved a 22% decrease in subsequent home visits.
Collecting and sharing patients’ health data with healthcare professionals remotely not only lowers the pressure on existing healthcare infrastructure but can also improve the quality of care by recording health data more regularly and consistently. The use of remote health monitoring devices can also help during medical emergencies by alerting first responders quickly. All these factors reduce demand for medical resources such as doctor visits and hospital stays.
This section of the blog discusses various types of connected devices that are being used to monitor and track coronary and pulmonary diseases, diabetes, and location and general health parameters.
Coronary disease is a type of heart disease in which blood vessels provide only a limited blood supply to heart muscles.
Patients with irregular heartbeats use these devices for restoring heart rhythm. Often they use short range network technologies to share heart data with clinical staff for monitoring.
Connected blood pressure monitoring devices enable the collection and sharing of blood pressure readings directly with healthcare professionals for better health management.
Increasingly portable ECG machines are used to monitor patients’ heart rhythm and to share recorded heart data with clinical staff, which helps them to identify abnormalities in the patients’ heart rate.
Connected sensors are being deployed near or even installed within patients’ beds to record and share real-time vital health information with hospital staff. This allows hospitals to better manage their resources by allocating nursing staff to patients as required, improving work efficiency.
Pulmonary disease affects the functioning of lungs and the respiratory system and can result in breathing difficulties.
These are portable devices that support in determining lung conditions of patients by analysing the volume of oxygen inhaled and exhaled and the time taken to empty air from the lungs.
These portable devices are used to determine oxygen levels in the bloodstream, and they also share real-time data with medical practitioners. They mostly use short range and cellular connectivity technologies.
Nebulisers transform liquid into a mist for inhaling, and connected devices enable patients to record and monitor their inhaler medication usage data and share it with clinical staff.
These machines automatically adjust air pressure based on a patients’ breathing patterns and can relieve and monitor sleep apnoea.
Diabetes is a disease in which blood sugar is higher than normal levels, arising when the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin.
Generally non-connected, a fingerstick glucose monitoring system comprises of a reader showing glucose levels, a lancet, and diabetes test strips. There are other forms of glucose monitoring systems that use connected glucose meters that can share data with a compatible mobile app or other hub device.
A CGM includes a small and lightweight connected device which can be placed under the skin of an individual. These devices record and share glucose readings to a compatible mobile app through either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Hospitals have also started to rely on tracking devices to remotely monitor and track patients within healthcare facilities. Using such solutions, hospital staff receive near real-time alerts of patients’ health and movement data which can be particularly useful during emergencies. RFID or Bluetooth Low Energy enabled tags can also record patients’ health information such as allergies, medical issues, and prescribed medications. These kinds of solution free up hospital staff and can also result in reduced treatment times and streamlined patient flow.
The use of remote healthcare monitoring devices is supporting healthcare providers to perform round-the-clock monitoring of patients’ health in a range of locations. During emergencies or in the event of abnormal recordings of health metrics, medical staff can quickly dispatch support or suggest medications to improve the health condition of patients potentially without being physically present. Thus, remote healthcare monitoring can reduce the pressure on healthcare infrastructure, improves the quality of care by recording health data frequently, decreases hospital stays, and enhances patient care and wellbeing.
