Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.
Managing chronic health conditions can be overwhelming for both patients and doctors. While technology has brought us remote patient monitoring (RPM) tools that have helped reduce unneeded Emergency Department visits, many of these solutions miss the mark. They often struggle with integrating multiple device data streams into a holistic view and confuse caregivers with complicated interfaces supplying too much data. These programs also require too much patient engagement, leading to lower long-term compliance with care plans, making sustained participation difficult and hindering long-term improvements.
Current RPM solutions also fall short because they don’t always integrate well with different types of health data. Every device vendor wants to own the market with their own comprehensive stack of apps and services, creating yet another silo of data that increases the burden on physicians required to reconcile all the inputs.
Patients might use various devices to track aspects of their health—like heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose, activity level, BMI, or sleep — but every new, better, uncurated device frequently generates data in its unique format or stores it in a proprietary repository. This leads to fragmented views of the patient’s health information, which doesn’t always end up in the electronic health record where clinicians manage their workflow.
Doctors face the challenge of navigating multiple, often incompatible technologies (swivel chair integration), adding to their workload and slowing down their ability to provide timely care. Current models of RPM make it difficult for caregivers to draw correlations between patients’ health status trends and their daily habits. Not understanding the source of worsening symptoms inhibits the ability to identify and treat root causal problems.
“When it comes to Value-Based Care programs, one of the primary reasons why there isn’t better physician participation is because clinicians don’t have visibility or control over what their patients do daily. Therefore, they have no levers to pull to promote compliance with the treatment plan,” explains Walt Pistor, CEO of Empowered-Home.
Empowered-Home offers a fresh, comprehensive solution to these problems. Unlike traditional RPM models that focus on specific devices with their own apps, Empowered-Home provides a unified platform that brings together data from various sources (devices and people) into one easy user experience with tailored interfaces designed for each stakeholder (physician, patient, care aide, family member). That means doctors get a more complete, real-time picture of their patient’s health trends, no matter which devices they use or who’s caring for them.
“We’re not trying to create the next great device. Instead, we remain agnostic to technology so we can adapt to the latest medical IoT, the most powerful small and large language models, even-driven data orchestration, and algorithms. Our primary goal is to knit the device information together into actionable insights for faster, more thorough triage and problem avoidance. We are focused on the outcome of the patient,” says Pistor.
What sets Empowered-Home apart is its focus on correlating a patient’s condition with their living situation, habits, health status, and health trends. An empowered home doesn’t just report device data; rather, it enables the patient’s immediate environments, through wearables and easy-to-use medical telemetry, to act as a virtual extender of the care team.
Using advanced clinical algorithms, AI, and automated data correlation, this virtual care team extender augments decision-making, leading to faster interventions and optimized patient outcomes. There could be multiple reasons a hypertensive patient would experience a dangerous rise in their blood pressure: sudden high exertion through exercise, missing a medication dose, or rapid onset of a panic attack. Empowered-Home helps physicians get to the bottom of causal factors sooner, avoiding poor outcomes and avoidable trips to the ER.
Family members and caregivers also play a critical role, with the ability to track changes in a loved one’s health and provide context on how environmental factors may influence their well-being. This proactive approach ensures that patients receive timely and personalized care, enhancing both the effectiveness and ease of the care process.
Empowered-Home not only simplifies the monitoring process for patients but also helps them stay on track with their health goals. The platform’s user-friendly design and automated features cut down on manual tasks, making it easier for patients to follow their care plans and take their medications on time.
For clinician teams, Empowered-Home provides valuable real-time insights that help them make faster, more informed decisions. By continuously analyzing data and identifying trends, clinicians can address potential problems before they escalate, resulting in fewer hospital visits and improved patient outcomes.
Empowered-Home is redefining how chronic conditions are monitored and managed by overcoming the limitations of traditional RPM solutions. It’s focused on integrated, disease-specific care plans and user-friendly dashboards, making it a valuable tool for family members, patients, and healthcare providers. To learn more about how Empowered-Home is changing remote patient monitoring for the better, visit empowered-home.com.
