A New Standard: 3 Reasons Remote Patient Monitoring Is Here to Stay

In the wake of a global pandemic, the world of clinical trials had only one certainty: change. There is perhaps no greater example of this than the continuing surge in remote patient monitoring. Although the industry explored this model for years, the adoption of remote monitoring at scale was born out of necessity — a world dealing with catastrophic outbreaks and global quarantines. Even with COVID cases on the decline and mask mandates falling by the wayside, the demand for remote patient monitoring shows no signs of abating.

At Shearwater Health, we began building experienced teams capable of enabling clinical trials requiring remote monitoring long before the necessity of a pandemic. It was part of being an industry leader in healthcare solutions, and it has made us experts in an emerging new industry standard. In fact, there are already three observable reasons the demand for remote patient monitoring is here to stay:

1. You cannot ignore that The train has left the station.

Simply put, now that clinical trial stakeholders have witnessed the advantages of remote patient monitoring, it is slowly becoming a new standard for approaching trial management — one you simply cannot ignore while looking to the future. Partly due to the pandemic, a growing majority of patients participating in clinical trials have experienced firsthand benefits of remote patient monitoring. What’s more, those who haven’t are likely still being educated on this option. Simultaneously, an ever-increasing pool of clinical trials is finding remote monitoring DOES have a place in assisting with their retention and data analysis, most especially when the patients come to expect it.

“COVID forced the conversation to change. When the pandemic hit, we couldn’t focus on the reasons ‘why not,’ we had to focus on ways to make remote patient monitoring and other processes a reality to drive the priority on patients.” — Kari Delahunty, President of Life Sciences

Largely speaking, patients have embraced the practice, recognizing that remote patient monitoring does not entirely remove the human component from the trial process. At the same time, remote monitoring has opened up a world of possibilities for clinical research, paving the way for more targeted trials, more actionable data, and greater patient retention.

A remote system means faster reporting, which means less money and expertise wasted on ideas without promise, and more money and more expertise directed toward efforts that can save a life or cure a chronic condition. Surprisingly enough, this model is more viable and beneficial for both the patients and the companies involved, making it an essential option for most forward-thinking clinical trials in the years ahead.

2. You cannot fight patient centricity.

Remote patient monitoring is fundamentally aligned with patient centricity, meaning it reinforces the practice of placing the needs of the patient at the center of the trial. In doing so, it not only makes things easier for the patient, but it also empowers the principal investigators, who are now better equipped to seek out diversity and inclusion. Simply put, having more options and more potential accommodations works out better for everyone.

However, as simple as this may sound, this level of flexibility is not currently standard for all trials. It is a frustrating yet undeniable truth in the world of clinical trials that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Patients are human beings, which means they are varied, complex, and diverse. This level of diversity can manifest itself in unintended ways at every phase of the trial.

For example, many patients living with central nervous system complications, such as Parkinson’s disease, fear “overperforming” or “underperforming” in a trial environment where their stress and anxiety are heightened. In this case, a lack of remote monitoring options not only ignores the needs of the patient but also compromises the value of the data being collected. Knowing that, we designed our toolkit for monitoring and caring for patients to be more inclusive, slowly expunging those moments when the needs of the trial supersede the needs of the patient.

In addition to lowering patient burden, the flexibility available through remote monitoring means that every patient will have more options for participating in trials, and every principal investigator will have more tools for shaping a robust and inclusive patient population. It does not matter which style of engagement is chosen over another, as this will often vary from group to group and trial to trial. What matters is that offering a wider array of options consistently leads to greater patient engagement and more proactive principal investigators, which are the two overarching goals of patient-centric clinical trials.

3. You cannot deny the outcomes.

Conveniently, all these increases in patient empowerment and overall flexibility also yield better results. The pandemic produced a mountain of data on the performance of remote patient monitoring across a variety of Phase I-IV trials and the verdict is overwhelmingly positive. With more options for participation and more flexibility in scheduling, remote monitoring was shown to be a great catalyst for patient retention and resulted in more timely and detailed data.

Additionally, remote monitoring has demonstrated a laundry list of practical advantages over more traditional systems:

• It allows for more focused and frequent testing, which means a deeper collection of patient information
• It enables clinicians to collect trial data and real-world evidence in real time, which is not only better for the patient, but also better for determining the viability of any given study
• It avoids all the wasted time and resources needed for patient travel and in-person scheduling, both of which can be detrimental to retention and overall data collection

When a method of trial management manages to both prioritize the patient AND produce better data in the process, it starts to become a necessary component of all clinical trials going forward. Fortunately, while the pandemic propelled these considerations to the forefront at blinding speed, industry experts like those at Shearwater Health see it as an opportunity for empowerment. It means more choice. It means more data. It means better medicine for all.

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