Designing a low-cost adaptable and personalized remote patient monitoring system

Remote patient monitoring systems (RMS) have gained increasing popularity in recent years. RMS have great potential to improve medical services by providing more affordable, timely, and accessible care. This paper describes an effective low-cost RMS that is readily deployable. The system targets chronic disease patients and attempts to reduce patient visits to the hospital and healthcare costs. The system is comprised of three modules: (1) an application for data acquisition, processing, and transmission, (2) an adaptable set of “personalized” sensors for measuring vitals and reporting emergency situations, and (3) a secure communication module for remote patient-physician interactions. The users interface with the RMS through an application installed on a mobile device. Using a return of investment (ROI) cost-benefit analysis and a cohort of 2.7 million patients, we estimate that through the implementation of such a system, the patients and the healthcare system would see benefits within one year.