Healthcare Technology Featured Article

June 18, 2012

Remote Monitoring Devices in Use Inside and Outside Reducing Medical Costs


Remote monitoring devices have been around for several years, though for the most part they’ve only been used at home by those with chronic illnesses to keep them safe and out of the hospital. 

But today, according to a story by Josh Gottheimer and Maya Uppaluru, wireless sensors can do everything from track your heart rate and calories burned, as you exercise and send the data to your mobile phone to warn your physician that you, a congestive heart failure patient, are experiencing some serious problems, giving the physician time to intervene before a crisis occurs.

The device itself can also be implanted in your heart to keep it beating, literally “talking” to your doctor.  

Gottheimer and Uppaluru report that these and other wireless healthcare solutions may help to reduce the $2 trillion the U.S. spends annually on healthcare expenses – 17 percent of GDP and more than any other industrialized country.

A monitored patient is twice as likely to survive a heart attack as an unmonitored patient.  But Robert Litan told the writers he estimated that remote monitoring technologies could save as much as $197 billion over the next 25 years in the U.S., largely through better management of chronic disease.

Chronic disease management comprises three-quarters of our total health system costs, and with our population rapidly aging, that will most likely go up even more. Many companies that make wireless health devices are well aware of this, and are zeroing this aspect of healthcare. 

Unmanaged chronic disease consumes 80 to 85 percent of health benefit costs. Studies have reportedly found that remote patient monitoring reduced the risk of hospitalization by 47 percent, office visits by 65 percent and hospital stay length by a notable amount as well.

Proving just how important this is, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed this month to allocate bandwidth, or a slice of the wireless spectrum, to medical body area networks (MBAN) that these monitors fall under.

Last week, FCC chairman Genachowski brought together leaders from the private sector, academia and government to discuss the opportunities and challenges of wireless health technology, and create a plan for accelerating adoption, Gottheimer and Uppaluru reported in their piece.




Edited by Braden Becker
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