Remote patient monitoring, or RPM, is an aspect of telehealth that is becoming more and more common. Since the emergence of COVID-19, the healthcare industry has been forced to adapt and change. COVID’s impact on healthcare has been large and difficult to adjust to. However, RPM has been instrumental in helping healthcare facilities recover from the financial impact of COVID, and has even been used to grow private medical practices. If you’re considering the implementation of RPM into your medical practice, you are likely to experience several benefits along the way. Here are 5 tips for growing your private medical practice with RPM.
Consider Your Needs
Before implementing RPM, consider your practice and how RPM might help. Remote patient monitoring should support your current services and fit into the overall care of your facility. Before developing an RPM strategy decide how best it could help your practice by establishing which of your procedures could be done remotely.
Develop Your Team
Developing your team is one of the key aspects of a successful RPM strategy. Growing your private medical practice will largely depend on your leadership team. When developing your team for RPM, try to include individuals who have different perspectives. Diverse thinking can better help your team anticipate barriers that might come with the implementation of technology in RPM.
Organize Your Workflow
Your workflow will determine the effectiveness of your RPM program. Organized workflows help provide optimal service to your patients. In order to make your RPM program smooth and efficient for both patients and staff alike, you must give due attention to the organization of your workflow.
In order to organize your workflow, and to a greater degree, grow your medical practice, analyze your existing workflow and look for weaknesses that can be addressed before building your RPM strategy. A few items to consider include:
- How best do you engage and educate your patients?
- How can you manage technology and other devices?
- What is the best way for your team to monitor patient data?
- How can you consistently communicate with your patients?
- How will you optimize the billing process?
Thinking through these topics ahead of time will help you build an RPM strategy that is organized and well-managed which will help you implement a seamless procedure and quickly build your private medical practice!
Involve Your Patients
Every effective RPM program involves patients. Patient involvement and responsibility are needed for successful RPM because healthcare professionals rely on the data that patients are collecting daily. You must teach your patients the importance of their involvement. Here are a few topics to go over with them.
- The need for consistent daily tests
- Scheduling their medicine
- The importance of contacting you about any changes in their health
- Constant communication about their role in their healthcare
Taking time to discuss these topics with your patients will help them understand the great importance of their role. Patient involvement is needed because it will help provide more accurate and consistent measurements of their health which can then be analyzed by your medical practice.
Evaluate Your Progress
As with any aspect of business, RPM requires regular analysis of your growth and effectiveness. Schedule regular times with your team to discuss what is working, as well as what needs to be changed. Set clear metrics to measure your growth, and be honest about whether or not you’re meeting them. If not, you may need to change your course of action.
While there are many ways to grow your private medical practice with RPM, it essentially all boils down to developing a program that fits into the scope of your facility’s care and making changes along the way that will help increase its effectiveness. As you make adjustments, you will see new patients, improved patient outcomes, and further growth of your practice!
