Why RPM Matters
In post-acute and home-health settings, the period between bedside visits is the riskiest stretch of the entire care episode. Weight can creep up, oxygen saturation can drift, or blood pressure can spike long before a scheduled nurse check-in. Because these changes often go unnoticed, nearly one in five PAC patients lands back in the hospital within 30 days—triggering CMS penalties that can erase up to 3 percent of Medicare revenue and pull down facility star ratings. Manual phone check-ins and paper logs help, but they cost nurses 20–30 minutes per patient every week, fueling overtime and burnout without fully closing the gap.
Remote Patient Monitoring turns these blind spots into a continuous feedback loop: wearables that have been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA—the federal agency that certifies the safety and effectiveness of medical devices) collect vitals around the clock, data streams into a central platform, and intelligent alerts reach clinicians early enough to stop a problem from snowballing. The result is fewer avoidable readmissions, richer outcome data for value-based contracts, and a measurable reduction in staff workload.
