Patient Monitoring in 2020
Key Words: Post-Care, Discharge, Adherence, Patient Monitoring
Summary: comjoodoc has implemented a solution for improved follow-up care and monitoring for transplant patients on behalf of the Charité Berlin and on the basis of an instruction by the AOK Nordost and the Techniker Krankenkasse. This solution enables improved care for chronically ill patients. The solution integrates seamlessly into existing software solutions of hospitals and private practice providers, can connect data from any source and allows the patient a legally secure communication and complete control of data transfer and communication.
What is Patient Monitoring?
Patient Monitoring is currently heavily discussed – but what exactly does the term stand for and what makes it a relevant topic for good health care?
The concept of Patient Monitoring has been around for a long time and describes the monitoring of data that allows conclusions to be drawn about the compliance and quality of a treatment using devices or combinations of devices. Health care providers can intervene immediately if the transmitted values exceed or fall below certain thresholds and can then contact the patient or the care team directly in order to avoid life-threatening situations or expensive rehospitalization.
Being able to act before an emergency occurs
More possibilities for data exchange and direct communication create better therapy results
Digitization enables secure and widely available monitoring solutions
Until recently, Patient Monitoring has been used mainly for surgery, for critically ill patients in intensive care or for other diseases requiring permanent monitoring. The parameters measured are usually heart rhythm and frequency, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and body temperature, but many other values can be measured.
In the course of the rapidly advancing digitalization, many new technologies have been developed in the field of Patient Monitoring, which are summarized under the term Telemonitoring.
Telemonitoring describes the possibility of remote examination, diagnosis and monitoring of patients by the treating physician. There are various techniques available here: patients can for example be equipped with mobile devices for measuring vital data, the collected data of which is then transmitted.
The communication between medical staff and patients via smartphone requires even less equipment. This allows information and data to be exchanged between doctor and patient in real time – however, healthcare communication is also subject to strict data protection guidelines. This presents challenges in terms of medical, technological, logistical and legal requirements.
A trend-setting implementation for simple area-wide use
In cooperation with the Charité’s nephrology department, MedVision, MyTherapy and medworx.io, comjoo is creating a telemonitoring solution for kidney transplant patients and all chronically ill patients with the MACCS (Medical Assistant for Chronic Care Services) project.
Patients with acute kidney failure have to be closely monitored by doctors and nursing staff, which is difficult to achieve since patients live far away from urban areas. Therefore, every doctor and check-up appointment is associated with a high loss of time.
MACCS offers a solution to this problem. Among other things, the project uses our app comjoodoc EASY. comjoodoc EASY enables communication between doctor and patient from home, taking into account all legal and data protection requirements. A permanent monitoring of the patient’s state of health is achieved by transmitting vital data. The patient can transmit his or her general well-being and other parameters such as pulse, body weight, blood pressure or blood sugar on a daily basis. This data is transmitted to the Charité’s patient database, where the doctor can check them for possible complications. If the doctor notices complications, he or she can write a message to the patient, make an appointment or start a video conference.
In addition to communication between doctor and patient, comjoo also enables communication between doctors and between doctors and other medical personnel. The platform comjoodoc provides various communication tools, such as video conferences or chats, taking into account all data protection regulations.
The universal applicability, communication tools and the connection to hospital information systems make this solution unique
Thanks to monitoring, doctors can offer their patients higher quality care – with no additional effort
Finally, a legally secure solution for monitoring chronically ill patients
Thanks to telemonitoring, physicians in private practices can target their services more efficiently and can guarantee the best care for their patients. Instead of weekly or monthly check-up appointments, for which patients have to travel to the hospital to check vital parameters, the data can now be transmitted online on a daily basis. Complications can be noticed much faster – and patients are treated before they become emergencies. In addition, doctors can network online and exchange patient-related data digitally. Support from the clinic reduces the amount of care required per patient.
Clinicians can use digital support teams to make the work of caring for patients already discharged much more efficient, which increases the quality of care and has a positive effect on adherence.
Better quality of life for patients through monitoring
For patients, telemonitoring offers them a higher quality of life and simple support in complying with therapy guidelines. In addition, the patient can communicate directly with the expert instead of having to make an appointment for every question. This way, the patient saves the time and effort spent on check-up appointments, as he or she now has to physically come in less frequently.
