Advances in E-Monitoring of Patients

The healthcare arena is full of exciting developments these days, including advances in patient monitoring. The purpose of the present APA-style sample essay provided by Ultius is to discuss developments specifically in the area of the e-monitoring of patients. The essay will be structured into four main parts. The first part will consist of an overview of the meaning of e-monitoring itself. The second part will discuss the ways in which e-monitoring can help improve and streamline the delivery of healthcare to patients. The third part will consist of a consideration of the specific e-monitoring technology known as the patient web portal. Finally, the fourth part will reflect on the relationship between advances in patient e-monitoring and the fulfillment of key values within the healthcare disciplines. 

Overview of E-Monitoring

E-monitoring is short, of course, for electronic monitoring, and it refers to the practice of healthcare professionals monitoring patients remotely, wherever the patient may be, and not just specifically within the inpatient clinical setting as is the traditional norm. For example, Rouse has indicated that e-monitoring can be understood as "a type of ambulatory healthcare that allows a patient to use a mobile medical device to perform a routine test and send the test data to a healthcare professional in real-time" (para. 1). This is different from, for example, the patient having to be physically present in front of the healthcare professional in order for the professional to be able to retrieve the data. This kind of e-monitoring thus not only enhances the autonomy of the patient, it also enables healthcare professionals to retrieve data from the patient in a more streamlined and organic fashion. 

There are other types of e-monitoring as well; but what all advances in e-monitoring have in common is that they all enable healthcare delivery to become more and more seamlessly integrated into the patient's everyday life, such that the patient will not need to significantly interrupt his own lifestyle in order to engage in the promotion of his own health. This can be especially helpful for chronic health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease. As Improving Chronic Illness Care (2015) has indicated, in order to adequately manage chronic health conditions, it is imperative that healthcare professionals work in close collaboration with the patient, and that the patient is empowered and motivated to take real steps to improve his own health in a consistent way over the course of everyday living. Advances in e-monitoring have can a long way toward turning this ideal into a reality, insofar as such advances have made it far easier for patients to work with healthcare professionals over the long term. 

The Hospital in the Home

One of the primary benefits of patient e-monitoring is that it enables healthcare professionals to deliver care within the patient's home itself, without needing the patient to come into the clinical or hospital setting as often. As Cafazzo (2014) has written: "In addition to promoting self-management, the mobile phone-based remote monitoring platform is currently being investigated as a means to create a virtual ward. A virtual ward enables healthcare providers to closely monitor patients with complex medical needs at home, rather than in the more costly hospital setting" (p. 2010). This tends to free up time and space within the hospital setting itself for patients who can in fact receive care only within that setting and simply cannot receive adequate care in a remote way. There is thus a strong economic benefit to be derived from the widespread use of patient e-monitoring; perhaps it is worth saying a couple further words about this point. 

From a macro-level perspective, the current healthcare system within the United States is suffering from a wide variety of serious economic problems. One of these is the nursing shortage: this refers to the fact that there are quite simply not enough nurses within the nation to take care of the healthcare needs of all the patients within the nation in a safe and effective way (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009). Long-term solutions to this problem would probably consist of an increased focus on nursing education, including the offering of incentives for young people to choose to pursue a career in nursing. In the meanwhile, though, the probably clearly continues to exist; and this means that any advances in healthcare delivery that could help improve the efficiency of the process as a whole would be not only welcome but would also fulfill a very deep need of the healthcare system as a whole. One way to achieve this improved efficiency would clearly be to utilize advances in patient e-monitoring whenever possible, and to reserve intensive inpatient care for those patients and those situations in which e-monitoring would simply not be able to effectively meet all relevant needs.

At the technological level, Cafazzo (2014) has pointed out that although patient e-monitoring in some form or another has been around for a rather long time, it is only recently that the proliferation of the use of the technology has become truly feasible. This is due to the simple fact that in the past, there were large capital costs associated with patients and healthcare professionals purchasing the specific hardware and technologies that would have been necessary to enable the e-monitoring process to work. These days, however, the relevant technology has become much lighter and more streamlined: for instance, there are several smartphone apps that can facilitate the e-monitoring process, and the process can also make use of social media connectivity. The barriers and costs to the implementation of patient e-monitoring have thus sharply declined over time. 

Patient Web Portals

One particular form of patient e-monitoring is known as the patient web portal. This is what Jayanthi (2014) has written about this e-monitoring technology: "Portal technology allows physicians and patients to access medical records and interact online. . . . This type of technology allows patients to become more closely involved and better educated about their care. In addition to increasing access and availability of medical information, . . . portal technology can be a source of empowerment and responsibility for patients" (point 4). In the past, patients' health records were kept in paper form in clinics and hospitals; and even when they have been stored in electronic form, it has often not been easy for the patient to access them. Now, though, with the patient web portal, the patient has direct and confidential access to his own health records; and moreover, he can privately communicate with his healthcare professionals in a secure and remote way in order to clarify any questions or concerns he may have about his own healthcare delivery process. 

The patient web portal is a good specific e-monitoring technology to discuss because it captures the general benefits of advances in patient e-monitoring in general. These benefits are in general twofold. Firstly, it allows healthcare delivery to be done from remotely, with the patient being able to access his records and communicate with healthcare professionals from the comfort of his own home, which empowers the patient and makes it far easier for him to engage with the promotion of his own health while still living a normal everyday life. Secondly, the fact that the patient can do all this remotely and on his own time means that the actual inpatient clinical or hospital setting can be more directly utilized for meeting the needs of those patients who need this kind of care and cannot have their needs met in a remote way. In short, advances in patient e-monitoring such as the patient web portal produce a win on both sides.

Such advances in e-monitoring, however, also call attention to and sometimes even exacerbate a crucial problem within the contemporary American healthcare system, which consists of population-level disparities in the quality of care delivered. As Ancker et al. (2011) have pointed out, wealthier, more educated, and in general more advantaged people have proven to be far more likely to make use of the patient web portal technology than members of poorer, less educated, or generally less advantaged populations. Insofar as the utilization of e-monitoring technologies is correlated with improvements in the quality of care delivered, this means that advances in patient e-monitoring could potentially widen the quality gap between populations, unless healthcare professionals figure out some way to work toward improving access to and motivation for using such e-monitoring technologies among the members of disadvantaged populations. This, however, is just one specific iteration of a much broader problem troubling the healthcare system as a whole today. 

E-Monitoring and Values

One of the most important values within the contemporary healthcare arena consists of what has been called patient-centered care. According to Murphy (2011), patient-centered care consists of conceptualizing and implementing the entire care delivery process from the perspective of the patient, and not from the perspective of the healthcare professionals themselves. This implies a radical shift of perspective, through which the professionals see the patient as the center of the healthcare universe (as it were), and through which they see themselves as working together to convergently meet the patient's needs. Clearly, advances in patient e-monitoring provide an exemplary instance of the promotion of the value of patient-centered care: the whole point of such technology is that it enables the healthcare delivery process to become better integrated into the patient's everyday life. 

In particular, the value of patient-centered care—and thus of the utilization of advances in patient e-monitoring—is especially important when it comes to the management of chronic health conditions. This is because when dealing with such conditions, the patient must often work with a range of different healthcare professionals; and each professional only sees the matter from his own perspective, then the patient is likely to end up lost and confused in a maze of misunderstandings. By streamlining the care delivery process and facilitating interprofessional collaboration (another key healthcare value), advances in patient e-monitoring can clearly help meet the needs of chronic care patients in a more effective manner. Moreover, this point is especially significant if one bears in mind that a large proportion of the care needs of Americans today do consist of chronic care conditions—that is, conditions that need to be regularly managed over the course of the patients' everyday life, and which cannot be fixed by a simple one-time visit to a hospital or clinic. In this context, advances in patient e-monitoring could hardly be more important than they already are. 

Conclusion

In summary, the present essay has consisted of a discussion of advances in patient e-monitoring. After defining what patient e-monitoring is, the essay proceeded to consider the benefits of patient e-monitoring, one specific example of an e-monitoring technology, and the relationship between e-monitoring and key healthcare values. An important conclusion that has been reached here is that the proliferation of the use of patient e-monitoring technologies would be highly desirable within the context of the contemporary healthcare delivery arena. This is not only because of the serious economic benefits that could be produced by such proliferation but also because advances in patient e-monitoring can strongly empower the patient, which is highly congruent with contemporary healthcare values.

References

Ancker, J., Barrón, Y., Rockoff, M., Hauser, D., Pichardo, M., Szerencsy, A., & Calman, N. (2011). Use of an electronic patient portal among disadvantaged populations. JGIM: Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(10), 1117-1123. 

Cafazzo, Joseph A. (2014). The hospital at home: Advances in remote patient monitoring. Home Healthcare Horizons. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51767038_The_hospital_at_home_advances_in_remote_patient_monitoring

Fox, R. L.,  & Abrahamson, K. (2009). A critical examination of the U.S. nursing shortage: Contributing factors, public policy implications. Nursing Forum, 44(4), 235-244. 

Improving Chronic Illness Care. (2015). The Chronic Care Model. Retrieved from http://www.improvingchroniccare.org/index.php?p=The_Chronic_CareModel&s=2

Jayanthi, A. (2014, January 28). 10 biggest technological advancements for healthcare in the last decade. Becker's Health IT & CIO Review. Retrieved fromhttp://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/10-biggest- technological-advancements-for-healthcare-in-the-last-decade.html

Murphy, J. (2011). Patient as center of the health care universe: A closer look at patient-centered care. Nursing Economic$, 29(1), 35-37.

Rouse, Margaret. (n.d.). Remote patient monitoring. SearchHealthIT. Retrieved from http://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/definition/remote-patient-monitoring-RPM