Smart devices provide healthcare professionals with vital health data. Through providing various functions, these devices can monitor patients remotely and reduce the need for personal visits.
Consumers are becoming more acquainted with wearable devices that track glucose and blood pressure throughout the day. From wristbands or penny-size patches, these devices collect important data on glucose or blood pressure levels throughout their use.
1. Remote Monitoring
Remote monitoring in telehealth refers to the use of digital devices that collect and transmit physiological data from patients’ bodies for real-time evaluation and intervention. Devices like blood glucose monitors and weight scales can track essential data such as heart rate and blood pressure readings; for more complex or dangerous readings however, additional advice from physicians may be required.
RPM provides healthcare providers with the ability to remotely monitor and manage patients via medical devices and technology to collect patient-generated health data (PGHD), from sources like wearables. This information is automatically sent back to providers for real-time feedback and alerts that could prevent serious complications or potentially life-threatening events from arising.
However, medical professionals must use extreme care in implementing remote monitoring tools in order to protect patient safety and comply with FDA standards. An improperly calibrated or worn device could result in inaccurate readings that lead to misdiagnosis.
2. Real-Time Monitoring
Digital health tools are becoming more sophisticated, enabling monitoring systems to detect diseases at an earlier stage than ever before – potentially helping reduce hospitalisation and long-term illness as well as cutting costs by eliminating unnecessary tests (lab work, X-rays etc) [8].
Sensors designed to gather data from human bodies can be used to monitor vital signs like blood glucose levels, heart rate and sleep patterns; offering insights into lifestyle choices. Physicians and healthcare professionals can then analyze this trend data in order to make sure patients take the best course of action possible for their individual cases.
Health monitoring sensors can vary dramatically depending on their context of use. Poor-quality data may be acceptable for fitness tracking purposes but not when applied to COVID-19 monitoring where false positives could cause isolation and quarantine of people at risk of infectious disease outbreak. Accessing contextual features of data practices is thus key in evaluating quality and trustworthiness of wearable healthcare monitoring.
3. Self-Monitoring
Sensors play a critical role in self-monitoring, as they collect and transmit medical data. Sensors must be reliable, quiet and compact while having short data-transmission delays; furthermore they must also be accurate and precise.
Others prefer tracking their behaviors manually; Sarah might keep a spreadsheet with all her calories consumed while Jim may prefer writing them down in his journal. Letting clients choose which method best meets their needs will increase compliance rates.
Self-monitoring can be useful when trying to change an undesirable behavior and are looking for more insight. However, too much self-monitoring could become problematic and cause anxiety or stress due to it becoming too closely monitored – in these instances another intervention approach might be more suitable.
4. Self-Care
Wearables provide individuals with unprecedented access to real-time data about themselves and allow them to track and manage their health on an individual level. Wearables disrupt traditional doctor-patient relationships by encouraging individuals to take an active part in managing their healthcare, for instance via connected inhalers which monitor usage and remind patients based on an analysis of symptoms.
Continuous monitoring enables wearables to detect any potential issues, such as abnormal heart rates or shifts in sleep patterns, that could require medical intervention at an appropriate time and reduce healthcare system burden. With early alerts in place, people can seek medical assistance at their convenience and relieve healthcare systems of unnecessary burdens.
Quality data collected by wearables is paramount to their effectiveness as technology tools for healthcare, particularly as wearables may serve as primary services available to structurally disadvantaged users. Poor data quality could disproportionately afflict these users, thus it’s vital that contextual features of data collection be considered and ensure all pertinent factors are taken into account during collection.
