As digital health continues to evolve, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) is steadily growing in prevalence and capabilities. Wearables, connected devices, and app-based technologies can provide a comprehensive data stream that helps clinicians piece together the entire picture of their patients’ health.

Yet, uptake for digital hematology has been slow as many hematologic treatments must be administered in-person. Bleeding disorders present a unique case because treatments are administered mostly at-home, thereby leaving a large gap in HCP supervision. Through running the industry-leading app for Remote Patient Monitoring in hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, we have opened the door for the bleeding disorders community to realize the following benefits:

1. View patients’ bleeds and infusions in real-time.

With a steady stream of information, clinicians can stay connected and invested in their patients, even between visits. With real-time data, clinicians can spot patterns and adherence drops immediately and shift treatment accordingly. Additionally, they can answer questions as they come up instead of waiting for the yearly visit.

2. Provide care to the right patients at the right time.

When a patient records a bleeding event in an app, connected clinicians can easily keep tabs on their recovery. We have seen clinicians ask for follow-up pictures or progress reports, give helpful tips, answer patients’ questions, and schedule visits. With MicroHealth specifically, the clinician even has the power to customize their settings so they are notified of bleeds immediately, weekly, or only when opening the app.

3. Increase adherence

We have found that connecting patients with their healthcare professionals in the MicroHealth app reduces bleeds by 57% on average (published in American Journal of Hematology)._¹ This might be because when there is actually a person on the other side of the connection, the patient is motivated to infuse and log more consistently.

4. Improve clinical workflows

In the professional-facing side of remote monitoring systems, clinicians can gain access to a variety of metrics that allow them to organize and keep tabs on their practice. For example, MicroHealth allows HCPs to organize their patient list by bleeding rates and adherence, so they can identify their most critical patients at a glance. Additionally, HCPs can selectively filter by treatment type or inactivity to send specialized messages to entire groups of patients at a time.

5. Help others in the bleeding disorders community

The more connections there are between patients and HCPs on MicroHealth, the more it inspires others to get connected. With the network effect, clinicians tell more patients, and patients tell their friends, and remote monitoring spreads — strengthening communication, improving continuity of care, and reducing bleeds for all.

While some of these benefits are indeed specific to bleeding disorders, the interactions enabled by app-based RPM are replicable across therapeutic areas and worth exploring as a core component of modern care.

1. Lara M, Duncan N, Andres R. Effect of hemophilia treatment center digital monitoring on bleeding rates: 12 month study. Am J Hematol. 2016;91(9):E408.