Survey: Remote Patient Monitoring to Match or Surpass In-Patient Within Five Years

COVID-19 has primed the remote patient monitoring market for rapid growth over the next five years, with solutions becoming on par with and eventually overtaking in-patient techniques, according to a VivaLNK survey.

The connected healthcare solutions provider polled hospitals and clinics on their opinions about the current state of remote patient monitoring (RPM). The results forecast significant growth and advancement of RPM technologies throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with accelerated growth likely over the next five years.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the demand for remote patient monitoring, as evidenced by the rapid adoption we have seen over the past year,” said Jiang Li, CEO of VivaLNK. “Even with the increased adoption, we are aware that there are still challenges in the market. Proactively addressing these challenges will allow us to provide the best and most cost-effective solution for RPM adoption.”
 
The survey reveals that nearly half (43 percent) believe RPM adoption will be on par with in-patient monitoring in five years, and 35 percent believe that it will surpass in-patient monitoring in this time frame. Twenty percent of the respondents noted having already adopted RPM, and another 23 percent plan to adopt within 12 months. When it comes to remote data collection, 90 percent of the respondents indicated that continuous, 24-hour data is important when compared to episodic data.
 
The biggest challenge to adoption is cost, and 55 percent of respondents believe that reimbursement is essential to the overall success of RPM. Another requirement to consider is electronic health record (EHR) integration, which 65 percent of respondents said is essential to widespread adoption.
 
The COVID pandemic has been an accelerator in the growth of the RPM market, with the majority of respondents (55 percent) answering that they are using or plan to use RPM for COVID-19 patient monitoring. Another important factor to this adoption is that nearly three-quarters of respondents (72 percent) say that patients are hesitant to visit a hospital or doctor’s office in-person.