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Innovative home health and its 3 next-gen benefits

With the rapid growth of tech solutions, healthcare is undeniably under the spotlight. It’s no secret that technology is changing the whole healthcare industry. Some even say that innovative home health is the future of healthcare. And I can’t help but agree. 

Innovative home health is a topic worth exploring in the context of the healthcare revolution we are experiencing.

What is “innovative home health”?

You see, innovative home health isn’t referring to the practice of calling a nurse to your home. Instead, it is more the automation of the whole process of health through technology. Whether it’s through remote patient monitoring or the digitization of healthcare data, technology is changing the way we take care of ourselves.

Innovative home health, within the context of the healthcare industry as a whole, refers to the impact of technology on transferring healthcare from the hospital into your own living room. In other words, innovative home health is the new way of going to the doctor without actually having to go to the doctor.

Having been in the healthcare industry for over 20 years, I’ve witnessed the healthcare industry evolve through tech. Keep on reading, and let me show you how innovative home health is bringing 3 main benefits to the healthcare industry.

In terms of human nature, there are 3 main motives or issues behind home health tech:

  1. Accessibility
  2. Choice
  3. Costs
Innovative home health - heart rate monitor

If COVID has taught healthcare executives anything, it’s that patients want to be able to connect with their healthcare providers outside of business hours, using telemedicine and email. They want to have a choice in who they can see, and they don’t want it to cost an arm and a leg. They want the ability to shop around easily and when they need it. 

Shopping for healthcare isn’t like buying a car or a house, or even a smartphone: when you’re sick or have an accident, you aren’t going to want to spend hours on the computer trying to figure out which doctor or hospital is the best for your condition, which pharmacy has your medication in stock and at what price. You want answers fast.

Luckily, the market always responds to the needs of customers. 

3 Next-Gen Benefits of Innovative Home Health

Innovative home health, which includes many different facets, helps address the 3 issues mentioned above.

Increasing patient access

Taking care of dozens of patients per day is tough. If a certain doctor is particularly in demand, getting an appointment can be near impossible. 

Who among us hasn’t had to wait months for an appointment with a specialist or weeks for a routine physical? And patients don’t want to visit a hospital or doctor’s office just to get a checkup, wait in line, take time off of work and spend on transportation just to get a prescription or feel reassured by a minor health issue.

Though patients with some conditions will still need to visit their doctor’s office on a regular basis, home health care technology solutions are increasing the capacity of doctors in the office and making it easier for patients to take care of their issues at home. It’s a win-win situation.

Improving convenience

Your child wakes up in the middle of the night with a fever and sore throat. A quick telehealth call can provide guidance and reassurance at the moment, instead of you having to wait until the morning (or longer) to get in at your local office. 

Your yearly physical was delayed due to COVID, but you send an email through your electronic health record’s patient portal to your doctor, who puts in the orders for your standard lab tests and reschedules your appointment. You get the labs drawn at a site near your house and can see your results (and your doctor’s comments) a day or two later in the medical record. 

This helps to improve the efficiency of your appointment: your doctor already knows how you are doing and has a plan in place for care, while you can come prepared with specific questions related to the results.

Cutting costs

I’ve already described how moving routine appointments to telehealth can save time, but it can also save you money. 

When time is money, not having to take time off of work, arrange for dependent care, and pay for parking and travel, it’s easy to see how your savings could be substantial. But innovating healthcare goes beyond telehealth.

If you’ve never heard of remote patient monitoring or RPM before, prepare to be amazed.

What is remote patient monitoring in innovative home health? 

As the name suggests, it is an alternative patient monitoring process that can be done remotely. In this case – at home. RPM uses the latest healthcare technology to collect and share patients’ medical data with their doctors. It’s done automatically and instantly.

This isn’t an entirely new concept: people with diabetes who have continuous glucose monitors or patients with arrhythmias and pacemakers may already have their health information transmitted to their healthcare providers wirelessly and automatically. 

But RPM is beginning to take off in new directions.

Remote patient monitoring example

Raise your hand if you have a smartwatch or fitness tracker. If you’re like the vast majority of people, your hand is raised. Does your device keep track of how many steps you do in a day? Your heart rate when you exercise? Your sleep? Mood? 

A growing number of companies are taking RPM to the next level by integrating it with electronic health records and giving patients (and physicians) integrative dashboards to help them make sense of the data and what to do next.

Final Thoughts

The tech world is innovating and revolutionizing many industries, including healthcare. Through the new home health technology, the industry of healthcare is becoming more and more productive, making healthcare more accessible to all.

In this blog, I’ve discussed the 3 next-gen benefits of innovative home health. If you’re looking for reasons to move your healthcare procedures from the hospital into your home, I hope these 3 reasons will be enough to convince you.

If you want to learn more about telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and healthcare in general, I recommend listening to my podcast and staying tuned for future blogs or checking out my latest book, The Future You.