The pandemic put a real strain on our healthcare system. Remote monitoring can help keep COVID patients out of hospitals.
Early on during the COVID pandemic, many patients ended up in hospital ICUs due to acute symptoms. This made it difficult for hospitals to accept other patients with life-threatening conditions because there weren’t any beds available. A new study reveals that remote patient monitoring can help relieve the strain on our hospitals. By tracking the progress of a COVID patient’s symptoms, the odds of hospital admission were greatly reduced. For those who were admitted for treatment, the average stay dropped from more than a week to about four and a half days. And only one-third as many patients ended up in the ICU. The remote patient program used an automated system to track symptoms, temperature, and blood oxygen levels. The patients were monitored by a team of nurses. Abnormal results triggered an alert and a virtual care team would contact the patient. This could serve as a model for home monitoring of other patients.