Wearables & Phone Apps Monitor Patience Compliance

The move is on to use phone apps and wearables to monitor patient compliance with their doctor’s health care plans. One company that hopes to reduce hospital admissions and increase post-discharge patient engagement through remote patient monitoring is iGetBetter, located in Sudbury Massachusetts.

According to writer Jonah Comstock, iGetBetter’s platform allows patients to access their doctor’s discharge plans on a mobile device. They can either reply to questions on an app or send biometric data collected on a wearable directly and automatically to their physician.

“We are helping healthcare providers such as hospitals, Accountable Care Organizations and physician practice groups reduce costs by engaging patients in their own care plans using mobile devices and consumer biometric devices, ” iGetBetter CEO Win Burke said in a statement quoted by Comstock. “This enables clinicians to monitor patients’ biometric data as well as patients’ self-reported data, allowing clinicians to intervene when necessary to avoid unnecessary hospital readmissions and physician office visits.”

A number of pilot projects are underway to test the viability of the system. Comstock reports that pilots with six health care systems have been completed and two of them have since signed on as customers. Company officials report that several more pilots are scheduled to begin soon including one for total knee and hip replacements.

A pilot is currently under way at the University of California Medical Center at Irvine. In a statement issued by iGetBetter, Ran Schwarzkopf, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at the Medical Center, reported positive early results.

“We are very pleased with our first year of pilots with healthcare providers, and are gratified that these initial pilots are converting to commercial deployments of the iGetBetter system, ” Burke said.