What are the benefits of home monitoring for people with a lung condition?
Here we highlight the benefits of home monitoring from the patients’ perspective - and address a few questions or concerns you might have too!
Helps me feel in control of my condition
If you have a long-term lung condition, like asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis or pulmonary fibrosis you will be familiar with having spirometry tests as part of your hospital check-ups. These tests provide information about your lung health, but as they are usually only done a few times a year (and even less since COVID!), you have no idea what is happening with your lungs between these times. Home monitoring means you can track your lung health between clinic visits, to put you in more control of your condition. Monitoring your lung health lets you see if your condition is staying stable, or maybe if things are deteriorating whether it’s time to discuss medication or oxygen with your doctor. Symptom tracking helps you understand the relationship between your symptoms and lung function - like whether your fatigue is due to a change with your lungs. Our solution gives you lots of extra tools to help manage your condition too, from activity trackers to medication reminders and information about your local air quality. In a trial, 93% of people with pulmonary fibrosis said home monitoring using patientMpower had a positive impact on their well-being and daily life.
Spot little problems…..before they become big problems
A key advantage of home monitoring is that it lets you and your medical team identify changes in your lung health early, so things like infections and exacerbations can be managed and treated quickly, helping avoid serious health complications.
Reduce your number of hospital appointments
Remote monitoring allows your hospital team to assess your lung health whilst you are at home, so not all of your check-ups have to be at the hospital. This can have a big impact; one cystic fibrosis centre that uses the patientMpower solution found that on average patients saved an average of €898 per year on travel and other expenses, 29 hours of travel time and 34 days of missed work or education when also including their carers. It also has significant environmental benefits - reducing carbon emissions by 284 kg per year. Many patients prefer virtual check-ups, reducing the stress and discomfort of travelling to the hospital whilst ensuring your lungs are still being monitored. Other people prefer to see their doctor face-to-face, if this is you then there are still lots of benefits to tracking your health between your hospital visits.
Avoid hospital admission...or get home sooner
If you do have a flare-up of your condition or get another complication like a chest infection remote monitoring may enable you to avoid being admitted to hospital, or if you do need to be hospitalised you might be able to go home sooner than you would do otherwise. Remote monitoring enables your doctor to monitor your health whilst you recover at home. In-built alerts let you and your clinical team know if there is a significant change in your measurements, making sure you get the care you need quickly if you do start to deteriorate.
Reassurance and confidence
Many patients report a feeling of reassurance and confidence with home monitoring. Knowing that your healthcare team is looking at your lung health data, or that they will get in touch if there is a change they are concerned about, can help reduce the stress and anxiety of living with a long-term condition.
Will home monitoring take me a lot of time?
No, recording your health data typically takes around 3 minutes. People normally do this once or twice a week.
Is it complicated?
No! The biggest number of help requests we have from users is with the initial set-up of the app and linking the Bluetooth devices. We are available, over the phone or email, to help if you have any issues with this. We rarely have any other support requests after the initial setup, and our users include children all the way up to people over 90 years old.