Thanks.

Firstly, ‘remote patient monitoring’ is very suggestive of measuring devices such as the weight scales you mention but this is not neccessarily the key. A fundamental issue is how do you measure wellness to be more truly preventative rather than reactive. One possible answer, is that the ‘early signs’ may be more perceptive to the indivitdual. Thus, RPM can start with relatively simple questions such as ‘are you feeling well today’, with the more technical readings following as a further diagnostic.

The second interesting area is the nature – or ‘personality’ – of the RPM service you devise. Drawing on your salt intake impacting on weight example, two services might use the same technology and similar readings, but lead to very different responses. In one, the nurse calls in a ‘parent-child’ manner and seeks to identify why. In the other, the nurse might seek to develop a peer-to-peer coaching relationship, perhaps not calling at the first opportunity but identifying patterns and trends and then discussing them with the patient. While the coaching approach may be more complex, it might actually be less costly to deliver and might just offer the prospect of more tailored intervetions.

Thus, the ‘right mix’ is not just RPM vs self care, but includes soft vs hard data and coaching vs alarm response styles.

My perspective, coming from a consumer marketing background, the more the user can be involved and engaged the more that marketing and related market forces will come to bear to resolve many of these issues. In the cost effective environment that we are in (i.e. seeing cost cuts while facing increasing demands) the way to get interest is to engage the “market”, and one way to do so is by innovation that engages the users. Not by building great ‘rocket ships’ and huge leaps, but by incremental changes, possibly disruptive to existing approaches, but incremental nevertheless.

Now I feel better!