Health technology business Withings introduced its remote patient monitoring platform MED PRO CARE in 2019. Now, the company is back with Withings RPM, a system that reflects the lessons learned since the first offering came to market.
“Our initial learnings showed that everything seemed to be too complicated in the space. Both patients and physicians struggled with the processes. Physicians found that technical complexities were a challenge and that there was data fatigue. On the other side, patients thought the devices were too complicated, with little or no explanations and no real focus on their experience,” said a spokesperson for Withings.
With Withings RPM, the company has tried to make all aspects less complex. The simplification effort has focused on the differing needs of patients on one hand, and physicians and service providers on the other.
The patient focus has manifested in an app that displays data and provides a way to receive support via a team on call and through support programs and services. Withings has adopted other features to help out other stakeholders.
“For physicians and service providers, there’s also no complex setup or onboarding, we can work with them for seamless integration into their preferred electronic health record as well as support them in setting up individual care plans for each patient with customizable thresholds to avoid data fatigue, this means the dashboard will only bring up what’s important,” said the spokesperson.
Withings highlighted features such as a simplified process for ordering devices, automated alerts for program compliance indicators, and the automatic tracking of activity against CPT reimbursement codes as positives for physicians. The goal is to enable physicians to spend most of their time assessing clinical data, rather than educating patients or completing billing paperwork.
The offering builds on Withings’ development of a portfolio of devices such as connected scales, hybrid watches, smart thermometers, blood pressure monitors, and sleep trackers marketed at consumers. The RPM initiative starts with weight and blood pressure tracking and the roadmap includes compatibility with the Withings Sleep Mat and preferred partner glucometer. Withings has high hopes for the system.
“While the RPM market is still very young, we’re confident that our devices, dashboard, app, and services will allow physicians to utilize RPM at scale. RPM is the way forward for the medical industry and we’re certainly going to be at the forefront of a change that impacts everyone in the chain,” said the spokesperson.
