Telemonitoring Works

A 5/10/2007 article in HealthcareIT News said this:

Home-based telemonitoring of patients with chronic diseases has a great deal of potential, according to a new study published this month in a high-profile health IT journal. To conduct the research, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Canadian researchers reviewed more than 65 studies published in the U.S. and Europe. The studies looked at home-based management of chronic pulmonary conditions, cardiac diseases, diabetes and hypertension using remote monitoring technology. While it wasn't clear how large the effect was, home telemonitoring did seem to cut ED visits, hospital admissions and average length of hospital stays, authors said. Telemonitoring seemed to have more impact on pulmonary and cardiac cases than diabetes and hypertension.

The three key drivers of telemonitoring are in evidence in the SimplyHome system by CMI:

1. Highly connected caregivers-- they have email and cell phones-- sometimes together in the form of a PDA.
   
   
2. The ability of intelligent home-based systems to send real-time alerts and notifications when there's abnormal activity-- or the absence of activity.
   
   
3. No reliance on a phone line or broadband connector in the home-- as an example, the SimplyHome system sends all its data via a two-way nationwide data network.
   

SimplyHome website