With a dedicated team of doctors, care managers, and patients, I co-founded the health-tech startup PatientOne in 2016 to help place the patient at the center of an increasingly fragmented health care system. Our solution? Develop a set of novel patient engagement and remote monitoring tools to dramatically enhance the patient experience and improve patient outcomes.

Given this mission, PatientOne has sought to provide the latest research and information, whenever available, on our discoveries of the unique benefits of patient-centered care. In this spirit, I am excited to announce the summary release of one of the largest studies to date on patient perceptions of Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). (A full story on the outcomes of this study is planned for release in May 2022.)

The PatientOne RPM perceptions study began in January 2019 with the official launch of RPM coverage by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and concluded in December 2021. The study centered on patients from a specialty clinic in urology. A survey was sent to patients following completion of their care pathway using the PatientOne RPM application. The survey included five questions to ascertain perceptions about the effectiveness of RPM and allowed for patient input of additional comments. In all, 359 patients completed the survey.

Study Parameters

• 359 completed patient surveys

• Results compiled over 36 months from beginning of RPM coverage by CMS in January 2019

• The assigned telehealth pathways included sequenced patient education materials, reminders, and requests for physiologic data. (Note: CMS requirements in 2021 changed to include automated transmission of physiologic data, precluding use of RPM with some care pathways beginning in January 2021.)

• Even distribution of patients across age categories of 20–40, 41–60, 61–80.

Summary of Patient Feedback

Question 1: I would recommend RPM to others.

91.9% Agree/Strongly Agree

Question 2: I was satisfied using RPM.

94.7% Agree/Strongly Agree

Question 3: With the RPM application’s messaging tool, some of my questions were answered without the trouble of office visits or phone calls.

91.0% Agree/Strongly Agree

Question 4: The RPM application notified me of important information at appropriate times.

96.0% Agree/Strongly Agree

Question 5: The patient education materials helped me feel better prepared for my procedure.

96.7% Agree/Strongly Agree

Qualitative Feedback

The study also asked participants to add comments about their experience with RPM.

 WHAT PATIENTS LIKED ABOUT RPM

 Multiple touchpoints offered by RPM.

“It was nice to have communication and updates without phone calls.”

 Ability to connect with their care team when needed using secure messaging.

“It helped me feel like I was still connected to the Doctor and nurses and I could ask a question at any time. Which I did.”

 Reminders and education automatically sent as part of assigned pathway.

“This was great without having to bother the office”

“The messages really helped me through a difficult recovery.”

WHAT PATIENTS DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT RPM

 Not receiving a response from the care team.

“The software was helpful in notifications, video informative, however, there were a couple of questions that I submitted, that I never received a response back.”

The idea of entirely replacing human communication with automated messages or just data transmission.

“There’s still nothing like talking to someone live. I felt [RPM] was a good supplement to talking with the doctor and nurse.”

Summary

Though we are still digesting the results of this perception study, it reveals some key takeaways about patient perceptions of RPM that should help guide our understanding and the further development of RPM solutions in the virtual health space.

• First, patients overwhelmingly recommend remote patient monitoring as a component of their care — I believe this is welcome news for those interested in improving patient engagement, the patient experience, and the overall quality of patient care.

• Second, patients appreciate how RPM provides new forms of connection and communication with their care teams–communication that extends beyond just physiologic data transmission. The PatientOne study utilized pre-defined care pathways as a mechanism to serve RPM to patients. The information, reminders, and tasks included with these pathways supports patient engagement in new and exciting ways. We therefore recommend deploying RPM with assigned pathways that include reminders, patient education, and automated check-ins.

• Finally, based on patient feedback, we conclude that patients are wary of a form of RPM that replaces human to human (h2h) communication (synchronous and asynchronous messaging, video chat, etc.) — rather, they prefer RPM that includes multiple touchpoints with care team members.

Such conclusions are not entirely surprising — patient engagement solutions like Remote Patient Monitoring should consider the needs of patients as much as the needs of providers and payers. After all, isn’t this the point of RPM?