Remote+Patient+Monitoring

Remote Patient Monitoring

What is it? It is a form of tele-medicine where patients can go home and still be closely monitored by medical staff at the hospital. Similar concept to teleworking. Patients take blood sugar readings themselves e.g. diabetes and send the data to the hospital via the Internet or upload it to a specific website.

Wearable sensors can be attached to the patient to collect data and relay it to the hospital - data logging. Smart clothes have sensors embedded into them or sensors can be placed in the walls of a room to measure temperature and humidity and the data sent wirelessly to a watch or other portable device. Benefits: improve patient's comfort, give patient more mobility by freeing them from wired sensors, reduce reliability problems of sensors falling out of place.

Positives of Remote Patient Monitoring: Patients can return to their normal life much sooner instead of spending more time in hospitals and they don't even have to worry about checking their data sometimes as it can be instantaneously sent at set intervals. Beneficial for elderly patients who live alone, alerts sent to hospital and family and friends as soon as something wrong is detected (Project Gerhome)

James