The following is a guest article by David Maman, CEO and founder of Binah.ai.
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) can offer a myriad of benefits for patients and providers alike. It can even pose as a solution to many of healthcare’s more complex problems, including the looming gap in health equity across the U.S. While RPM is not a silver bullet to end all barriers and challenges that surround health equity, it can offer increased accessibility and inclusion, by allowing for real-time health data to enter into places and communities that it has never been before.
Increased Access
Reports show that minorities, as well as those living in rural areas, currently face numerous hurdles to accessing care; including lower incomes, limited transportation, and/or extended travel distances to see their providers. This has resulted in a greater likelihood of those in these communities experiencing chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
This cycle is a prime candidate for upstream thinking. Instead of healthcare workers fighting an uphill battle and triaging individuals when they make it through the organization’s doors, there is an opportunity to bring the care to the communities before the situation becomes dire.
How? By tapping into technology that is used each and every day– smart devices. More than 70% of those living in the U.S. have a smart device, including those who are part of an underserved community.
While wearables can offer real-time health readouts, they can also come with high price tags, with significant operational costs once again creating a barrier between care and income. Wired devices or cuffs and finger clips may be more cost-effective, but the likelihood of a patient having these items in-home or anywhere they need them and an easy understanding of how to use them is unlikely, therefore the cycle continues.
AI-powered, video-based, software-only solutions such as Binah.ai allow patients to access real-time health data simply by looking into the camera of their smart device. In the case of this solution, vitals such as blood pressure, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV SDNN and RRI raw data), oxygen saturation, respiration rate, sympathetic stress, parasympathetic activity, and pulse-respiration quotient (PRQ), are available within under a minute. This solution has been developed to work on any skin color (as defined by the Fitzpatrick skin types classification) and has already been proved to function extremely well with end-users with various skin colors worldwide in locations such as South-Africa, India and Nepal.
Increased Inclusivity
Historically, racial and ethnic disparities persist in clinical trials. The FDA has shown enrollment numbers for people of color haven’t improved. A lack of representation from racial/ethnic minority groups in clinical trials has resulted in the development of interventions that have not translated well into real-world use and have not been efficacious in different populations.
One of the biggest barriers to participating in a clinical trial is getting to the physical location. The typical trial requires patients to repeatedly travel to a central site — such as a university hospital — for assessments, administration of therapies, tests to monitor results, and medications to take at home. This can involve several hours per trip as well as paying for transportation and food. These requirements create a selection bias by eliminating many people with little disposable income, few transportation options, inflexible work hours, and family-care obligations.
By leveraging RPM, however, geographical barriers are removed and time is saved; allowing more participation by patients and data that can be collected by researchers to better determine the validity of the trial. As the popularity of decentralized trials continues to grow, participants across regions can leverage RPM to monitor treatment progress in the comfort of their own homes, or with little to no travel; in addition to cutting down on personal cost.
Increased Possibilities
It is often touted that despite its devastation, the COVID-19 pandemic can be credited with propelling the healthcare industry toward the adoption of digital healthcare solutions, faster than ever before. It also underscored the alarming lack of access and inclusion across minority populations. Many healthcare leaders have acknowledged the concern around health equity and are actively seeking solutions; but they need to look no further than their phone.
About David Maman
David Maman is the CEO and founder of Binah.ai, a leading provider of general health and wellness video-based monitoring tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that allows users to extract heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV SDNN and RRI raw data), oxygen saturation, respiration rate, sympathetic stress, parasympathetic activity, pulse-respiration quotient (PRQ) and blood pressure anytime, anywhere, using only a smartphone, tablet or laptop camera.
