Expansion in Remote Patient Monitoring

As strange as it seems, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed the hospital operations – they now strive to keep patients out of the hospital. This has brought out the scathing truth for patients and providers to have a comprehensive, integrated healthcare delivery platform at home. Patients should be able to get the best treatment irrespective of location or the availability of care providers or hospital beds.

The FDA has issued a new policy in response to the pandemic which allows the manufacturers of remote monitoring devices to expand their use to include non-invasive vital sign measuring devices that measure body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure. This greatly eliminates the need for visiting a hospital and also reduces the risk of contracting the disease. This policy is limited to the duration of the COVID-19 emergency and applies to some modifications to claims, functionality and the like of FDA-cleared RPM devices.

As the health systems move to remotely monitor the patients, this connected care technology is uniquely helpful for the healthcare providers as they caa manage and intervene without risking exposure to the virus. This also increases the hospital capacity, ICU capacity, increases safety of both patients and providers and greatly reduce healthcare costs.