Remote monitoring more than a remote possibility

“We think it’s a good thing. It is a sign that the industry is actively pursuing solutions, and rapid iterations are a key to developing products that ultimately meet market needs,” said Jiang Li, CEO, VivaLNK. “It is also important to apply proper disciplines without shortcuts to ensure medically sound products. Based on CDC’s estimate, 90 percent of the healthcare cost is attributed to chronic and mental health conditions. Remote patient monitoring will be greatly beneficial for the management of such conditions for lower cost and better outcome of patients.”

VivaLNK provides a wide variety of technologies for keeping all types of patients connected to their providers. In this discussion, Li explained how the company’s chemo-patient monitoring system works.

“It starts with our unique form factor, which is an ultra-light wearable patch. Weighing just 7.5 grams, the comfort is key to patient adherence,” he said. “From there, the technology ensures continuous multi-vital data capture in ambulatory situations, with real-time monitoring capabilities. A common problem facing chemo patients is the occurrence of neutropenic fever post treatment; in some cases, the fever can be severe enough to cause re-hospitalization. By using RPM to obtain advanced notice of the impending event through the monitoring of temperature and other vitals, care providers can intervene to prevent re-hospitalization—thereby improving patient safety, efficiencies, and reducing costs to the hospital.”

We participated in a southern California cancer center to monitor chemo patients after treatment,” Li continued. “The goal was to monitor for neutropenic fever in the days following treatment to identify an impending re-admission event. The study looked at tracking three key vital signs (temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate) to develop a correlation that predicts the event. The solution involved wearable sensors and a patient companion app on a mobile device. Results of the study showed the ability to detect a readmission event up to 18 hours in advance.”

“Researchers reported that all of the patients had uninterrupted passive data collection, meaning that the wearable knee sleeve, application, and paired smartphone were successful in achieving data collection,” continued Kyle. “The surgeon even received a notification if the patient did not achieve the expected knee flexion at two weeks postop. This continuous monitoring and automated surgeon notification simplified and streamlined data sharing between patient and surgeon in this study. With technologies like these, surgeons can almost literally see how their patients are doing while recovering at home. When surgeons have insight into their patient’s progress using remote monitoring, they may be able to anticipate a problem before it becomes a bigger, more painful, and costlier issue.”