Home Monitoring
As society strives to be as healthy as possible, people will increasingly experiment with smart devices that allow them to monitor various biomarkers.
Large-scale adoption of health monitoring devices will drive changes in the healthcare market. Enough data could help us find patterns in our health and prevent certain diseases. Therefore, new entrants that focus on making sense of all collected data will emerge. Their focus will be on preventing diseases from occurring rather than treating them.
Home monitoring is however not limited only to tracking our hydration or how many steps we make. In the future, professionals can use smart home monitoring devices to obtain valuable information about patients in real-time which will enable them to act faster and save lives.
EXAMPLE 1:
Philips conducted research with patients that experienced a stroke caused by an undetermined cause.
Thanks to Philips BioTel Heart MCOT monitoring which Philips used for the initial 30-day monitoring, they were able to increase the detection of atrial fibrillation and helped to reduce the risk of a second stroke. Lastly, the expenses per patient were almost 8x lower.
EXAMPLE 2:
A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) under the lead of Prof. Georg Schmidt is working with a start-up Cosinuss. They are exploring the possibility of using sensors to monitor Covid-19 patients at home. The sensor measures blood oxygen saturation, pulse, respiration rate, and core temperature. By continuous monitoring of the patients, the team hopes to reduce the time before medical intervention for people with severe symptoms and ultimately save lives.
EXAMPLE 3:
OutSense an Israeli-based start-up, developed a device that can be clipped on the rim of a toilet bowl and collects information about the health of its users from their waste. Such a device can, for example, detect signs of dehydration or even potentially warn about the suspected onset of colon cancer.
Expert Statement Johannis Hatt:
If you want to get reimbursed by health insurance for delivering services to prevent somebody from getting sick, that’s a super hard task, right? So, that’s something which is probably still a little bit down the road, but ultimately I believe that this will happen.
Expert Statement Elisa Frenz:
I believe that we actually need to create a better interface between our home and healthcare facilities. Whether that means a hospital or a nursing home, we want to prioritize a ‘patient first’ approach and maintain a comfortable environment for as long as possible. Certainly, from an economic perspective, a move to ‘virtual wards’ and remote monitoring is imperative so that hospitals have the option of discharging patients as quickly as possible, whilst ensuring patient safety and continued quality care.