Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a healthcare practice that enables providers and medical teams to deliver coordinated, quality care with an emphasis on accessibility, patient comfort, and better health outcomes. RPM technologies include wearable or nonintrusive devices that track patient vitals and conditions. These allow medical professionals to easily detect anomalies or signs suggesting deteriorating health conditions and take necessary action without the need for in-person visits.

While RPM is far from a new practice (its history dates to the early days of telehealth in the 1950s and 1960s), advances in technology, especially in artificial intelligence (AI), have dramatically improved RPM and delivery of care. Healthcare providers now have access to valuable patient insights to support early intervention and increase efficiency. RPM with AI integration complements clinician judgment by analyzing vast amounts of patient health data to inform critical care decisions. Some AI-powered RPM technologies send automatic alerts to practitioners when irregularities in the patient’s vitals are detected.

Here’s a look at how AI is improving RPM and patient outcomes.

Better Management of Chronic Conditions

Chronic diseases, including heart disease, asthma, and diabetes, represent some of the costliest health issues worldwide. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic diseases affect almost half of all American adults. The U.S. spends about 75 percent of its healthcare budget ($3.5 trillion) on treating people with these conditions. The scope of chronic health conditions and the need to prioritize both clinical demands and patient comfort places a major strain on many healthcare providers.

AI-powered RPM can enhance collaboration between providers and patients to better manage chronic conditions and reduce the frequency of in-person visits. Remote monitoring particularly benefits people in rural or under-resourced areas with minimal healthcare access, people who live far from medical specialists, people with mobility and transportation challenges, and people in post-acute facilities with complex medical needs.

Continuous monitoring is important for people with chronic conditions. RPM devices can capture massive amounts of physiological data—much more than can be collected during occasional healthcare appointments. AI can then analyze this data to create a detailed, yet holistic view of the patient’s health with real-time insights. Physicians can remotely monitor the progression of chronic disease via graphs and trends on an integrated dashboard, accessible via mobile phone, tablet, or computer.

Tailored Treatment Plans

Personalized treatment plans are especially helpful in managing chronic conditions, and AI-powered RPM technology can allow providers to seamlessly deliver quality care with consideration to the patient’s medical history, lifestyle choices, genetics, and responses to prior treatments. AI algorithms utilize all these data sources to predict outcomes of various treatment options and recommend personalized approaches to managing complex medical conditions. Patients can also monitor their health data and AI-based recommendations to take a more active role in improving their health and mitigating medical issues.

Early Detection of Medical Issues

Early detection of medical issues is one of the most important benefits of AI-powered RPM. Early detection of deteriorating health is particularly pressing for people with chronic conditions. Unfortunately, detecting signs and subtle changes in a patient’s health can sometimes be difficult during sporadic in-person visits. Continuous data collection and analysis, made possible via RPM with AI integration, allows physicians to more accurately and quickly address health issues.

AI algorithms analyze and process data such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and other vital health metrics. They then create personalized patient baselines with consideration to medical history, gender, age, and health status. Because AI excels at pattern recognition and anomaly detection, it can monitor large amounts of data from RPM devices to pinpoint irregularities—even minute changes—and identify potential health concerns. For example, these systems can signal increased risk of cardiac arrest for patients whose heart rate has gradually slowed over time.

Through data collection and analysis, AI also helps providers more effectively allocate resources by placing patients into risk groups based on their potential for adverse events.

Medication Adherence

Medical interventions are less effective when patients fail to take their medication as prescribed. Medication non-adherence not only compromises treatment outcomes but also increases healthcare costs, hurting both patients and providers. RPM with AI integration, however, can provide valuable insights and reminders to patients by monitoring their behavior and responses to treatment. Because AI is constantly learning to improve its effectiveness, it can even predict potential non-adherence issues.

AI-enabled wearable devices can send push notifications to patients to ensure they take their medications in the prescribed dosages at the right time. AI can also provide valuable educational content about the importance of medication adherence.

TapestryHealth’s AI-Powered RPM Technologies

Under guidance of CEO Mark Hirschhorn, TapestryHealth provides industry-leading RPM and AI solutions that allow post-acute facilities to deliver better care. Using radio wave technology and contactless radar, Tapestry’s Vitals Management Program is an intuitive solution that detects changes in patients’ vital signs, accesses electronic health record (EHR) data, and alerts healthcare teams when intervention is required. In addition, the company’s AI data and analytics solutions can accurately forecast adverse health events and predict patient declines as much as 72 hours in advance. This allows facilities to be more proactive in preventing hospital readmissions, which are linked to higher patient mortality rates, greater patient stress, and higher costs for patients, payers, and hospitals.

By combining the strengths of AI and RPM technology, Mark Hirschhorn and TapestryHealth are helping post-acute facilities reduce costs, increase patient safety and satisfaction, and deliver better care.