Providers and other experts recently have touted the ability of advanced remote monitoring tools to help older adults reduce their trips to the hospital, sometimes on a return visit.
Some of the most concrete evidence that RPM tools do, in fact, accomplish this outcome has come from studies in Europe.
The latest promising research shows that a smartphone app that logs older adults’ vital signs was able to reduce emergency department visits by 25%.
Developed by digital company Health Call, the app was able to reduce the number of any on-site emergency event, such as falling, by 11%. Overall, the research looked at more than 8,000 long-term care residents in more than 100 different facilities between 2018 and 2021, the study showed.
Those findings are similar to those of a British study completed over the summer that found that bed monitoring software reduced residents’ hospital admissions and readmissions by 18% and 9%, respectively.
In addition, caregivers who were part of the study also said that using the app increased their confidence in supporting residents and addressing emergencies, study authors noted.
An additional benefit of collecting data through apps is that, using interoperable health systems, information can be pooled to generate broader, meaningful analyses, the researchers said.
“By having the capability to link data recorded by care home staff to data from government services, we were able to evaluate the impact of using a novel digital monitoring technology such as the Health Call app,” senior study author Suzanne Mason, MD, said in a statement. “This study highlights the added value in capturing routine health data for research above and beyond that already being collected for the delivery of patient care.”
One difference from the app in the study and newer RPM tools is that the health collection is achieved completely through the smartphone and app. Many RPM systems now rely on passive sensors throughout a facility, or within an older adult’s home, but many of those devices also are cloud-based and easily could transfer data to an app or caregiver tablet.
The findings on the RPM app were published last week in the journal Age and Ageing.
