Mayo Clinic researchers investigated the benefits of the Rochester, Minn.-based health system's COVID-19 Remote Patient Monitoring Program, which it rolled out in March 2020, according to a study recently published in Nature.
Five details:
1. Mayo's COVID-19 Remote Patient Monitoring Program has served more than 7,000 patients across 41 states, according to a Sept. 2 news release.
2. For the study, Mayo researchers evaluated the following areas of the remote monitoring program: feasibility, safety, patient engagement with technology, rate of alerts and escalations managed by virtual care teams, use of acute care resources, and patient clinical outcomes.
3. The researchers developed protocols to assess patients' technical readiness following enrollment in the program, including providing instructions in multiple languages, delivering remote patient monitoring equipment directly to the patient's home or recovery location, and using a tech platform with integrated cellular-enabled connectivity to support patients who lack internet access.
4. Researchers found that with the program interventions, overall patient engagement with the program was 78.9 percent. They concluded that patients will engage with the technology and a centralized remote care team for recovery.
5. Tufia Haddad, MD, medical director of the COVID-19 Remote Patient Monitoring Program, said the study supports the 2021 expansion of CMS' final rule to reimburse for qualifying Remote Patient Monitoring Program services for acute condition management, according to the news release.
"These were major barriers to telehealth and virtual care adoption prior to the pandemic, and these study results may help inform other needed healthcare policy changes to sustain adoption of this technology beyond the COVID-19 pandemic."