A1728 – Patient-reported Symptom Severity and Pulse Oximetry in the Covid-19 Remote Monitoring Programme in Ireland
The 2021 American Thoracic Society International Conference – hosted virtually this year – saw the presentation of two posters relating to experience with COVID-19 remote monitoring programmes delivered using the patientMpower platform. The new data from the US and Ireland supports the use of the patientMpower platform for remote monitoring of COVID-19 to optimise healthcare resource use and enable safe patient hospital discharge.
Experience from the Mount Sinai Hospital Remote Monitoring Programme
Drew Copeland and colleagues at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital reported on the successful implementation of the patientMpower platform for remote monitoring of oxygen saturation and dyspnoea in post COVID-19 patients following hospital discharge.
The aim of this 90-day remote monitoring programme was to both optimise hospital utilisation by enabling expedited discharge of stable patients and to improve patient safety after discharge with continued close monitoring at home. 111 patients who had required supplementary oxygen during hospitalisation were enrolled in the programme between April and November 2020. The median monitoring period was 84 days with 64% of patients reporting an oxygen saturation ≤ 91% during monitoring. 53% of patients reported at least one instance of dyspnea. There were on average 46.4 automated alerts triggered per month, with the majority stemming from oxygen saturations <95%.
The authors concluded that the ability to remotely monitor patients increased provider comfort when expediting discharges of medically stable patients. The patientMpower platform automated alerts reflected periods of worsening pulmonary status and triggered interactions that provided more continuous contact between providers and patients.
Patient Recorded Data from Ireland’s COVID-19 Remote Monitoring Programme
A second poster gave an overview of the patient-recorded data from the patientMpower COVID-19 remote monitoring programme in Ireland. An important strategy to free up in-hospital capacity in Ireland was use of the patientMpower remote monitoring platform to support at-home care or early discharge of lower-risk patients with mild/moderate COVID-19 symptoms.
Between March and October 2020, 1,045 patients had been enrolled in the programme across 15 secondary and 8 primary care centres. The majority of patients (89%) gave permission for de-identified data to be used for research purposes. Symptoms and physiological markers of severity differed significantly between individuals enrolled in the programme. Oxygen saturations of 94-96% were reported at least once by 81% of patients who had available SpO2 data, whilst 37% and 30% of patients recorded lower oxygen thresholds of 92-93% and <92%, respectively, on at least one occasion. A total of 23 patients were reported to be admitted or readmitted to hospital.
Table 1 Summary: Patients ever reporting symptom (by severity score)
This report showed that remote monitoring in appropriate patients can free up hospital capacity whilst still providing medical oversight. In addition remote monitoring can provide potentially valuable data for research into COVID-19.
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