St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis' home-based health monitoring program has been invaluable for tracking COVID-19 patients who have tested positive at home, but research suggests that phone calls make the program more accessible, according to a Jan. 6 study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
"Our study found that both the app-based and phone-based monitoring programs were effective, but that the phone-based program was more attractive and useful to patients of color and patients living in under-resourced neighborhoods," said Thomas Maddox, MD, professor of medicine at the medical school and vice president of digital products and innovation at BJC HealthCare.
Researchers compared 7,600 COVID-19-positive patients enrolled in the home-monitoring program to 9,700 COVID-19-positive patients with similar health issues who weren't enrolled in the program from April 2020 to December 2020.
Patients in the program had an option of choosing to receive monitoring through a daily phone call or by using the smartphone app associated with the program.
The findings suggested that Black patients enrolled in the program preferred a phone-based monitoring system to the smartphone app. Black patients were also less likely to drop out of the program when they used the phone-based option.
"The key lesson we learned is that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be the best approach if we want to reach the entire community," Dr. Maddox said. "That philosophy needs to remain at the forefront not only during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also as we develop remote monitoring programs for other common health conditions like heart failure in the future."
The home-monitoring program was launched in April 2020 and has helped COVID-19 positive patients at BJC HealthCare and Washington University access care from home without having to go to an emergency room.
More than 22,000 COVID-19 patients have been monitored by the program.