Readmission to hospitals is one of the cost and preventable issues in contemporary healthcare. In case of a patient readmission back to a hospital within 30 days, it indicates a lapse in care, either due to poor follow-up, failure in adherence, failure in detecting symptoms, or inability to control chronic illnesses. In the case of healthcare providers carrying out their work in a value-based care system, readmissions may also imply severe financial consequences.
The issue of reducing readmissions has nothing to do with making hospital stays longer and more frequent. It has to do with the post-discharge care, and it is here that a remote patient monitoring (RPM) platform transforms all aspects of care.
Why Traditional Discharge Fails High-Risk Patients
The standard post-discharge care plan presupposes that the patient will keep himself/herself, observe medications, learn to detect initial symptoms of deterioration, and arrange follow-ups in time. However, the vast majority of the high-risk patients, particularly those with chronic conditions such as heart failure, COPD, or diabetes, are unable to self-manage.
Some are living alone, do not have a good means of transportation, or are simply overwhelmed by medical directions. It is usually a silent deterioration of the symptoms, and when they come knocking at the door, it will be too late. This feed-forward chain causes unnecessary ER visits as well as readmission.
Everybody in healthcare systems has known this all along, “but we could not find the means to keep the patient in our scope once they walked out of our facility”. RPM platforms now provide a real solution.
How RPM Platforms Bridge the Post-Discharge Gap
A good RPM program enables healthcare professionals to keep a close track of important vitals and trends even in real-time and remotely. Blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, glucometers, and weight scales are all hooked to the same dashboard, and information automatically flows into the hands of the care team.
Therefore, rather than treating patients who have already identified some problem, care teams are alerted when something has moved off baseline, such as when a heart failure patient gains weight suddenly or when a diabetic patient has an elevated glucose level. They could call them, change medications, or increase the frequency of visits, and the patient is not the one bothering anybody.
Better Data, Smarter Decisions
Among some of the unrecognized values of an RPM platform is the clarification of data. Clinical decisions can be more accurate when the provider observes real trends in blood pressure, oxygen saturation, or blood sugar levels with time. They no longer depend on the memory of the patients or one in-office reading.
Such visibility gives a provider the ability to deliver patient-centered care, use medications more precisely, and prevent overtreatment or misdiagnosis. For the patient, it means better outcomes. To the healthcare system, it translates into cost savings and fewer readmissions.
RPM Supports Transitional and Team-Based Care
Post-discharge care is never the job of one provider. With an RPM platform, coordination between the physicians, case managers, nurses, and pharmacists becomes improved. Everyone works from the same real-time data. Instead of spending hours sifting through disjointed notes, care teams can provide weekly huddles on the high-risk patients flagged by the platform.
However, combined with chronic care management (CCM), RPM adds one more layer of protection for patients transferring between hospitals and homes. CCM might give long-term care coordination, but RPM puts an additional safeguard in the form of a warning system with signs caught in real-time.
The combination of them forms a multifaceted method that can make the risk of readmission minimal.
Increasing True Engagement
The best RPM platforms do more than collect numbers. Their approach includes such methods as reminders, educational materials, and direct communication tools. The patient is reminded every day to perform a reading and acknowledges that somebody monitors the data, and the compliance will increase.
Patients feel supported, not abandoned. This feeling of responsibility and affiliation regularly invites improved lifestyle choices, compliance with medication, and augmented trust with their suppliers.
Conclusion
The discharge from the hospital is not the end of care; it is only the start of a new period of care. By means of an advanced remote patient monitoring system, providers are able to stay in direct control and proactively provide care to patients, supporting their interactions and intervening before the issues develop into emergencies.
When it comes to an industry where everyone is pressured by the markets to minimize expenses and enhance performance, cutting hospital readmissions is not a luxury, but an essential action. RPM is another tool that brings clinical as well as monetary value. To patients, it can make all the difference between remaining at home and returning to the ER.
