New wearable communication technology bypasses Wi-Fi and delivers a long-term, long-distance solution for transmitting health data in rural regions, a new report shows.
Senior living communities and skilled nursing facilities in rural areas often lack the infrastructure necessary to incorporate the latest internet or wireless technologies.
Researchers, however, have developed a separate data transmission system that can send info up to 15 miles away, without the need for satellites or antennas as intermediaries. That range is longer than other wireless technology systems, the researchers say.
“Remote patient monitoring is a critical tool for diagnostics and therapeutics, especially in sparsely populated areas,” the researchers noted. “This long-range capability [we’ve developed] has the potential to serve resource-constrained and remote areas, providing equitable access to digital health.”
Although just 15% of older adults in America live in rural areas, those communities skew older than city demographics, one study shows. Overall, 27% of skilled nursing facilities are located in rural regions, according to the Rural Health Information Hub.
The data-transmission system was incorporated into a wearable three-dimensional-printed prototype that goes on a user’s forearm, the researchers explained, adding that the idea is to transmit diagnostics such as skin temperature and heart rate on a continual basis.
Heart-health monitoring via wearables is something not enough older adults are doing, despite new and improving tech capabilities, the McKnight’s Tech Daily reported earlier this year.
Providers in rural America have unique challenges, including technology limitations; but residents and patients themselves also are more vulnerable to issues such as heart disease, cancer and opioid overdoses, experts have warned.
Many people, including President Biden, have addressed the need for expanded healthcare access in rural or underserved areas. But technology itself is not a “silver bullet” that will fix all of rural residents’ needs, some healthcare leaders noted at a recent healthcare summit in South Dakota
The research on the comms system, named LoRa, was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
