In the current situation, for most, working from home is being considered a blessing in disguise. While some may enjoy teleworking, for others home environments may be mentally draining and distressing. In order to prevent the spread and infectivity rates of Covid-19 virus, especially for those with prior acute illnesses, telehealth platforms, namely Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) tools became imperative. These tools aid people in controlling their health issues and proceeding with their daily job, enabling safe at-home solutions for people to telework more productively, compared to working in a physical traditional office environment.
Health Risk Assessment at Home and Workplaces
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has constructed health and protection risk assessments with safety protocols in place. Employees must be vigilant about governmental and local notifications on restrictions, guidance, and advice about public healthcare and the coronavirus. Unwell employees must be eagerly urged to stay at home in seclusion and have online consultations with their medical practitioners. Moreover, personnel who are healthy, but have ill family members residing with them who have Covid-19, should inform their supervisors.
Physical and digitized healthcare checkups must be conducted of all people before they enter workspaces, such as baseline vital signs checks, and temperature records. Corporations must enforce SOPs (standard operating procedures) at all times with social distance between employees and masks and gloves to be worn. Moreover, with ill relatives at home, social distancing guidelines must also be encouraged to prevent the spread of the virus. Employees who are unwell in any form at the workplace must be instantly isolated from others and must safely travel home or to a hospital.
RPM services at home
Read more on RPM Solutions for Palliative Care Organizations
Patients who were infected in the pandemic, or have prior illnesses can receive the RPM platform in their homes, that many home health monitoring companies offer. This tool specifically benefits people who have always been teleworking, before the pandemic, as well as those people who had to shift their workspaces. Before Covid-19, medical practitioners or clinicians could execute an initial physical face-to-face checkup to ensure that the patient is comfortable with the new technology. However, now clinicians have established safe at home solutions through RPM, through video and audio conference calls.
Remote Patient Monitoring also plays a substantive role in preventative care and everyday care to reduce hospitalizations and ensure a healthy diet and activity schedule for patients. Moreover, through RPM Tools biological parameters are regulated such as body weight, pulse rates, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and respiratory rates. Hence, people can be situated in home-based agencies and continue their daily lives, without compromising on their healthcare.
Furthermore, through effective equipment of remote patient monitoring physicians receive aid to triage new cases on the grounds and severity of each person’s condition. Through this system, employees receive a personally tailored type of healthcare and wellness, that is suited for their needs and their condition, while at home. From intricate detectors to progressive algorithms and artificial intelligence-powered platforms, the accurate wearable medical apparatus compile and communicate information to healthcare providers.
Remote Patient Monitoring at Home and Work
RPM tools have complex indicators, advanced algorithms, and artificial intelligence-powered platforms in wearable portable healthcare devices that consolidate data and communicate it to physicians. The managerial staff of corporations can also be informed on the progression and healthcare updates of their employees.
Different home health monitoring companies have different types of RPM tools that they can employ. AltumView Systems introduced an artificial intelligence-powered medical care alert system that includes a smart visual IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) sensor and a mobile phone application. The platform can perceive when people are injured and can notify the relevant healthcare authorities and primary care providers of the accident. The instrument also has visual recognition and voice conference call capacities.
Devices such as Babyscripts allow working mothers to be safe at home and safe at work. This service is a virtualized pre and postnatal care program from obstetricians to provide a modern type of prenatal and postpartum healthcare. Healthcare can be remotely administered via digital touchpoints and solves the issue of the lack of gynecologists and professionals, and ameliorates maternal mortality rates. These tools also include blood pressure cuffs, oximeters, and body weight scales. Furthermore, if there are any instabilities in their health, patients can meet their physicians in an online consultation.
Is RPM successful?
As remote patient monitoring has been accelerated, it has ratified itself as a successful apparatus. Through Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes, remote patient monitoring can be reimbursed through insurance providers. CPT is a healthcare ordinance that keeps a track of medical, surgical, and diagnostic test procedures for firms, such as healthcare institutions and reimbursement providers.
Through remote patient monitoring tools and safety and health protocols in place, there is a conversation amongst all stakeholders, i.e. employees, employers, the government, and the healthcare industry about what relevant health and safety questions must be asked at work and how safety risk assessments must be executed. This way as a society, we protect the public, uphold the economic status of all people, and allow people to conduct medical tests at home through telemedicine.
Though the United States has plans to open up parts of the country in the pandemic, research suggests that the states that removed coronavirus restrictions and bans are facing major challenges as cases surge, exacerbation rates worsen and hospitals become overcrowded. According to Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-diseases expert informed the Senate that the alarming spread is risking everyone in the country. He advised that people need to stay home as infectivity rates have numbered to over 40,000 a day, and cases could “go up to 100,000 a day,” if precautions are not taken. According to CNN, a principal model anticipates the US death toll to reach nearly 300,000 by December — but wearing masks and maintaining SOPs could prevent 70,000 deaths. Protective measures will become the gateway for us to open up the country.
As we continue the global response to the COVID-19 crisis, we are witnessing all healthcare sectors of our healthcare system combine their efforts to ensure everyone is safe at home and at work to deal with this life-threatening challenge. Remote patient monitoring is an integral weapon in the healthcare arsenal to fight the pandemic.
Kelton High is a Social Sciences undergraduate who majored in International Relations, with a budding interest in qualitative research. He has previously worked at Transparency International.