Shifting care into the home: How new at-home technologies improve patient outcomes

Shifting care into the home: How new at-home technologies improve patient outcomes Rachel Marley

Quick Takes

• The home care industry is rapidly growing and enabling healthcare professionals to treat, monitor, and diagnose patients in the comfort of their own homes
• Technologies such as online pharmacies, wearable devices, and medical-grade tools are becoming increasingly available to patients and bringing the clinic to the home
• By adopting home care, healthcare leaders can work together with physicians and patients to dramatically decrease healthcare costs while improving outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant shift in bringing care away from the hospital and into the home. From advances in telemedicine to at-home screening kits, there continues to be a transformation as healthcare organizations and biotech companies push to deliver better care options at home.

As the global population continues to age, the home care industry is witnessing significant market growth – currently estimated at USD $362.1 billion in 2022 and expected to rise to almost USD $670 billion by 2030.¹ While in the past, at-home care has been primarily for the elderly population, treatment, monitoring, and diagnosis at home is becoming more prevalent and accessible for individuals of all ages across the world. 

In the latest Healthcare Transformers webinar, Dr. Cristina Barreca, Global Head of Customer Experience & Solution Design at Roche Diagnostics, hosted a live virtual event with Robin Farmanfarmaian, Professional Speaker, Entrepreneur, and Angel Investor, to discuss what it means to receive care in the home and the steps industry is taking to meet the evolving wishes of patients. 

Robin shared her own experience as a patient, provided an overview of the new medical companies delivering advanced technologies for the home, and explained how healthcare leaders – from physicians to executives to investors – can support at-home care and work on improving patient experience.

Watch the full, free recording of the event now!

A patient perspective

Robin is not just a successful entrepreneur but a chronic disease patient who experienced hardships at an early age. At 16 years old, she was misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease, leading to 43 hospitalizations, six major surgeries, and three major organs removed, including her entire large intestine. By age 26, she was still feeling incredible pain, and her doctors just kept prescribing increasing amounts of methadone. 

Eventually, this led her doctors to suggest implanting a morphine pump into her spine. For years, the advice she was hearing from her physicians wasn’t working. Pushing to advocate for her own health, she fired her entire healthcare team in search of better options.

Finally, she was correctly diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and put on a medication regimen of Remicade. Within 24 hours of that first dose, she was in remission. 

Healthcare professionals work diligently to ensure patients receive the correct diagnosis and subsequent treatment, but this can be challenging. Robin’s experience points to the need for patients to be their own CEO, advocating for their health and being surrounded by a team that leaves them feeling empowered.

Watch the full, free recording of the event now!

Technology trends: Moving care into patient homes

Throughout the discussion, Robin highlights the technological trends that are moving the needle by making care at home possible for patients. 

Full-service online pharmacies 

One trend that Robin highlights is full-service online pharmacies that help simplify patients’ lives by assisting with their medication coordination, scheduling, and refills. One of the main reasons why elderly patients go into assisted living is because of the difficulty of keeping track of daily medicines. Comprehensive pharmacies, like PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy, afford patients a simpler way to manage prescription drugs, helping to ease administration and potentially result in better patient compliance. This trend of bringing medications right to the patient, with daily packets ready for patients to take is transforming at-home healthcare.

Wearable and connected healthcare devices 

Another rapidly growing trend is wearable devices enabled by smartphone connectivity to monitor a patient’s disease progression. From neurological diseases to cardiovascular diseases, companies are pushing the boundaries of remote monitoring with the goal of improving patient care.

Examples of wearable technology include the Roche PD Mobile App² and a platform by h2o Therapeutics³ that help passively monitor symptoms and movements in Parkinson’s disease patients. VitalConnect⁴ is another company with a technology that monitors cardiac symptoms through a wireless patch enabling remote evaluation to help assess a patient’s condition in real time, which could help enable better care delivery. 

Advanced at-home medical devices

We are also seeing the trend of medical-grade devices making their way to the home, where patients can use tools that physicians typically deploy in the clinic. One company in this area is TytoCare5, which offers small accessories – such as an exam camera, thermometer, otoscope, and stethoscope – to enable remote physical exams from home. Using this solution, patients can evaluate different parts of their bodies, including heart, skin, lungs, and ears, and share this information directly with a remote doctor who can help make diagnostic and treatment decisions.

Decreasing obstacles to care while optimizing resources 

From artificial intelligence to emergency triage services to at-home lab draws the industry is pushing towards providing services right at the point of the patient. To that end, it is becoming more evident that improving healthcare in the patient’s home is not only critical to improving patient experience but also to ensuring better use of medical resources and timelines and, simultaneously, boosting patient satisfaction.

What questions are top of mind for healthcare leaders in the homecare industry? 

A live Q&A session moderated by Dr. Barreca rounded out the session, with Robin answering questions at the top of mind for healthcare leaders, such as: 

• Audiology is ready to transition from hospital and conventional clinics into the comforts of clients’ homes. Do you believe there might be a market for audiologists to assist with various wearable devices?
• How willing are healthcare professionals ready to provide care at home? What is needed from organizations to help make them more comfortable and accepting?
• What advice do you give patients who are considering switching over to a different healthcare organization?
• Which databases and platforms for remote care do you find to be the most advanced?
• How do you see this healthcare transformation of at-home care in countries outside the United States?
• How do you bridge the digital gap between patients with low digital skills and telemedicine technology?

Watch the free live event recording now and learn more about the shift of care from the hospital to the home can help us work on improving patient experience in healthcare.