Future of Cardiology: Remote Patient Monitoring

As more people are living longer, more people are getting older. This is especially the case in India. By 2025, India is poised to have around 110 million people aged over 60 years. This will dramatically shift the disease burden to chronic illnesses (like cardiovascular diseases), since these diseases are prevalent among the aged. As a result of this shift, doctors in India will face patients with an increasing burden of chronic diseases in the near future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unique logistical challenges to the way healthcare is delivered. Distant healthcare delivery tools are crucial for patients in need of regular medical consultations.

Leveraging the latest advancements in technology can help overcome India's health care delivery challenges in the post-pandemic world and the looming demographic challenges while ensuring uncompromised quality of care to patients. ‘Remote Patient Monitoring’ (or sometimes called telemonitoring) is one such tech-driven tool.

It can be a boon, especially for clinicians. The physician can access and review the heart data and, if necessary, recommend inpatient or outpatient visits for further examination or intervention. This is very common for the follow-up of implantable devices. The efficiency and security of this telemonitoring concept have been proven in cardiology.

Remote monitoring of heart health is now easy with the arrival of devices like AliveCor’s KardiaMobile 6L and KardiaPro. The latest innovation in technology has made the situation better for heart patients. Now they can conveniently take an ECG at home in just 30 seconds without any hassle of gels and wires.

With AliveCor’s KardiaPro, clinicians may access real-time on-demand full disclosure of ECG data 24/7. It helps them in managing the existing or new patients from a distance. Not only this but the doctor can easily streamline ECG and blood pressure interpretation with no data overload. Also, it helps them to access, annotate and e-sign summary reports.

Telehealth can better accommodate patient care that leverages the entire cardiovascular team including physicians, advanced practice providers, pharmacists, dieticians, among others. Moreover, such an approach can help alleviate the pressure placed on health systems due to physician shortages in areas of need as related to Covid.

Clinicians, health systems and policymakers should continue to build upon the momentum created during the onset of pandemic to incorporate telehealthcare delivery into CVD prevention practices long-term.

References

1 Dey Nambiar Lakshmi Sheikh Reddy, S. D. J. K. K. K. S. (2012). Aging in Asia: Findings From New and Emerging Data Initiatives. NCBI, 15, 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109208/