Withings launches remote-patient monitoring for patients and care teams

Withings Health Solutions has launched a new remote-patient monitoring (RPM) solution designed to reduce friction between care teams and patients. The company has more than 13 years of experience creating medical-grade devices that fit seamlessly into consumer lifestyles.

The result of two years of development and consultations with hundreds of health providers, Withings RPM has been designed to take the complexities out of remote-patient monitoring programs and make their deployment effortless for physicians, and convenient, simple and enjoyable for patients.

Withings is focusing on well-designed, clinically-validated devices, with expanded capabilities to support sleep, temperature, and glucose measurements. It is adding intuitive dashboards that streamline every aspect of creating and administering RPM programs, so it has advanced benefits for both providers and patients.

Benefits for providers

The new RPM solution was designed to simplify the onboarding process. With a few simple clicks, patient devices can be ordered and sent to recipients in moments. Physicians can also design care plans and set goals for individual patients in seconds.

RPM is also made to easily manage data from multiple patients with automated alerts and reminders covering both patient health data and program compliance indicators. These include alerts on device usage (both initial setup and ongoing use), as well as alerts when patient vitals require action.

It is also meant to improve patient engagement with the ability to send regular communications to patients via their preferred channel of communication. That means text messages, phone calls, and in-app video calls. Those communications means can be used to provide reminders, additional advice and encouragement.

Optimizing data collection for both providers and patients

The idea is to put patient engagement and satisfaction at the center of the solution; the company is rebalancing its current industry focus to better address both sides of the equation needed to ensure successful remote-monitoring programs.

On the one side, for RPM programs to be successful, health professionals must get access to continuous and accurate home data. That data needs to be collected, transmitted and analyzed in a frictionless manner while also tracking billable information. On the other side, for this data to even exist, patients need to be motivated to continually track and use at-home clinical devices in a consistent manner.

To date, RPM solutions have typically concentrated on provider integration capabilities without optimizing the experience for patients that ultimately power the program.

“Since launching Withings Med Pro Care, our first remote-patient monitoring solution, we have continued to assess the market to identify pain points and identify strategies to allow RPM to take off and to be finally distributed at scale,” said Antoine Robiliard, vice president of Withings Health Solutions, in a statement. “In our analysis, the missing ingredient until now is attention to simplicity and a focus on the patient experience.

Optimizing the billing process

Care providers can spend the majority of their time assessing clinical data without having to dedicate time educating patients on the use of devices or completing billing paperwork. Withings RPM automatically tracks activity against CPT reimbursement codes and produces monthly reports with the data required to bill insurers. This functionality is available either directly through the Withings RPM or via an improved EHR billing integration.

It also keeps the clinical workflow unchanged with a solution that works with virtually any EHR solution, provides a single sign-in option, directly displays the captured data in the patient’s chart and allows care providers to review alerts directly in the EHR system.

In addition to weight and blood pressure tracking, providers will also be able to incorporate sleep tracking and glucose measurements into their RPM programs as the Withings RPM becomes compatible with the Withings Sleep Mat and preferred partner glucometer.

Withings’ portfolio of devices includes connected scales, hybrid watches, smart thermometers, blood pressure monitors, and sleep trackers that can capture up to 20 vital health parameters such as blood pressure, weight, heart rate, activity levels and sleep patterns, as well as provide an ECG for heart health.