Yes, Telehealth Will Increase, But
COVID-19 has showcased the power and practicality of wearable cardiac monitoring devices for patients and physicians. Many expect the trend toward digitization will only accelerate.
Sanjaya Gupta, MD, MBA, of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, summons Churchill’s advice—“never let a good crisis go to waste”—to describe the medium’s new opportunistic growth. “It’s much easier for a patient to be monitored from home than to have to come into our office,” Gupta says. “And because Medicare is now reimbursing very well for these visits, we see them as another revenue stream for us.”
New technology has brought to market a stream of wearables for continuous and remote arrhythmia monitoring and analysis. One device provides heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation. The Apple Watch identifies silent AFib with 87% sensitivity and 97% specificity (J Am Coll Cardiol 2020;75:1582-92).
Ochsner Medical Center began putting its chips on wearables well before COVID-19. In addition to its Apple Watch program, Ochsner had already embedded chronic disease management programs tied to wearables into its clinics. “They’ll now become much bigger,” predicts Medicine and Cardiology Chair Christopher J. White, MD.
Another COVID-19 outcome is the marriage of wearables and telehealth. Wearable data allows Gupta to instantly correlate symptoms with heart rhythm. “It’s more efficient for everybody,” he says. “If we detect a potential problem, we can either discuss it with the patient over a telehealth visit or urge them to come into our office for more intense follow-up.”