Remote patient monitoring (RPM) of vital signs post-surgery enables physicians to assess patient physiological data and treat symptoms and conditions early, which results in better patient health outcomes. This article explores the 5 ways remote patient monitoring of vital signs can help patients recover quickly and comfortably from home following surgery while assisting caregivers and hospital healthcare providers in monitoring their progress.
Remote Patient Monitoring of Vital Signs in Post-Surgical Care
Many hospitals leverage remote patient monitoring of vital signs to support postoperative recovery and minimize hospital readmissions. RPM continuously records vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse rate, saturation, body temperature, and blood glucose. This vital sign data allows providers to monitor patients outside the hospital and minimize unnecessary utilization of healthcare resources.
A study of 2340 cardiac surgery patients who underwent remote patient monitoring of vital signs post-surgery using RPM devices found that remote patient monitoring systems are feasible, effective, and safe to improve postoperative outcomes. In addition, remote monitoring of vital signs resulted in the early diagnosis of 144 potentially life-threatening complications.
1) Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring of Vital Signs Helps Educate Patients on Post-Surgery Care
Postoperative care is essential to ensure that the patient’s surgical wounds heal correctly and that the recovery process goes smoothly. In addition, with telehealth appointments and remote patient monitoring of vital signs, patients can check for warning signs of infection, monitor their biometric data, and communicate virtually with qualified healthcare professionals from home.
Patients often find it challenging to identify potential post-surgical issues due to a limited understanding of symptoms based on discharge instructions. This can result in patients seeking unnecessary care or waiting until minor issues become significant complications. In contrast, patients have reported that post-surgical remote patient monitoring of vital signs provides peace of mind and improves their quality of life.
2) Remote Patient Vital Sign Monitoring Encourages Patients to Manage and Monitor Their Health Actively
Remote Vital Sign Monitoring is essential for patients pre and post-surgery as their physicians must closely monitor them to ensure they recover without complications. Although, patients cannot be entirely dependent on their physician for their recovery. They learn more about their body when actively tracking their symptoms.
If a patient identifies unusual activity with telemedicine, they can report real-time changes to their healthcare provider in real-time. Likewise, the physician can inform the patient if a reading is out of the normal range. Detecting potential health issues early can help prevent complications and minimize further hospitalization. While the patients receive the tools needed to monitor their health, remote patient monitoring of vital signs also gives healthcare providers more control of their time.
3) Post-Surgery Patients Show up More Often with Telehealth
The convenience of telemedicine improves health equity and access in populations with reduced access to healthcare. Moreover, research shows that surgical patients who use telemedicine technologies are 79% more likely to keep appointments before and after surgery than those with in-person visits. In particular, telehealth follow-up visits are a sensible option for those patients with limited mobility post-surgery.
Several medical centers are considering telehealth as the standard for post-discharge care. One randomized controlled trial showed that postoperative virtual visits following urgent minimally invasive surgery are more convenient for patients. Telehealth postoperative visits consist of assessing the patient’s overall condition following surgery.
During the visit, the physician and patient discuss recovery, wound healing, and review of the operation results. In addition, physicians can review medication and remote patient monitoring of vital signs data with the patient and confirm any new diagnoses or treatment plans.
4) Helps With Value-Based Care
Following surgery, patients must check for warning signs, such as high fever, signs of infection, or increased pain. In addition, they may return to the hospital if they are not adequately educated on monitoring their recovery. The average U.S. hospital readmission rate in 2022, reported by Definitive Healthcare, is 15%. As of 2018, there were 3.8 million 30-day all-cause adult hospital readmissions at an average readmission cost of $15,200 per patient.
Beginning in 2012, the Affordable Care Act established the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) to help reduce hospital readmissions. The HRRP is a Medicare value-based purchasing program that encourages hospitals to improve communication and care coordination to engage patients and caregivers in discharge plans better and, in turn, reduce avoidable readmissions.
Medicare cut payments by a maximum of 3% in the fiscal year 2023 to 17 hospitals nationwide. This is an improvement compared to 2022, with 39 hospitals facing the maximum penalty in fiscal 2022. At the same time, hospitals can still do better. On the other hand, hospitals with low readmission rates are rewarded for evidencing value-based care.
5) Improves Patient Satisfaction
Typically, patients with a positive perspective regarding their medical care increase patient experience and satisfaction scores. Remote patient monitoring can help the patient and the medical organization improve patient perceptions of their care. Indeed, evidence suggests that more than 90% of patients would recommend telemonitoring.
RPM devices for post-operative care offer the following benefits to patients:
- Increased communication: patients can quickly be notified of changes or concerns during recovery.
- Regular vital sign monitoring: RPM devices measure vitals that enable continual monitoring. They can then transmit this data to the healthcare practitioner to encourage quick interventions in an emergency.
- Adherence: Devices can track if and when patients are taking vital sign readings and medicine.
- Alerts for patients: patients and physicians receive alerts if a reading exceeds a set threshold, and patients receive medication reminders.
Making Remote Patient Monitoring of Vital Signs Accessible to Patients Post-Surgery
To improve patient confidence, remote patient monitoring of vital signs requires devices that function appropriately with the specific population in mind. That’s why easy-to-use technology is essential to the perceived usefulness of remote patient monitoring technologies. In addition, ready-to-use straight-from-the-box “plug-and-play” post-surgical RPM devices gain the trust and involvement of patients and promote self-efficacy and confidence, patient-provider relationships, and even postsurgical adherence to discharge instructions, improved patient satisfaction.
Telehealth and remote patient monitoring offer care for patients post-surgery and many conditions, such as chronic conditions like migraines, diabetes, depression, and anxiety. It is also available for acute care of colds, allergies, and COVID-19. In addition, these visits allow you to get care from a provider when patients cannot attend an in-person visit.
Tenovi remote patient monitoring offers accurate, easy-to-use solutions that boost workflow efficiency, patient satisfaction, and revenue. Introduce your healthcare partners to a better remote patient monitoring experience. Book a free RPM demo today.
