The Center for Connected Health and the Center for Technology and Aging have launched a new tool to gauge the return on investment for remote patient monitoring technologies for patients with heart disease.

Developed in collaboration with the California HealthCare Foundation, the Web-based tool seeks to help build the economic case for care providers to bring RPM programs to scale. As remote care becomes more prevalent, providers and payers are looking for evidence of the effectiveness of RPM programs, officials say; the new tool is meant to analyze the ROI of established RPM programs and projecting it into the future.

“Remote patient monitoring increasingly offers providers new options for improving the care of America’s aging population, particularly those with a chronic disease,” said David Lindeman, director of the Center for Technology and Aging, in a news release.

“This new tool not only assists program managers to evaluate financial ROI, but it also identifies potential program efficiencies, making the ROI Tool effective for both evaluation and decision-making,” added Kamal Jethwani, MD, corporate manager of research and innovation for the Center for Connected Health, a part of Partners HealthCare.
 
The ROI Tool was developed and tested with a number of healthcare organizations participating in the CTA Diffusion Grants Program, officials say. HealthCare Partners, a physician group practice based in Southern California, used it to quantify the value of its remote patient monitoring program for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The tool showed that HCP’s interactive voice response program for COPD had a positive ROI of 1.3 to one after one year, and is projected to increase dramatically – to 18.9 to one – by year five.
 
"The importance of accurate, compelling, and relevant health services research cannot be overstated in an evolving care environment," said Jeremy Rich, MD, director of the HealthCare Partners Institute for Applied Research and Education, in a statement. "To help meet CMS's Triple Aim of better health, better care, and reduced costs, the ROI Tool allows clinicians, policymakers, and healthcare administrators to accurately examine the costs involved to implement and expand a RPM program in a variety of care settings."

The ROI of RPM tool can be accessed through this website, or via the CTA ADOPT Toolkit, which can be used by organizations seeking to improve patient care and health care utilization for chronic care management.

[See also: Telemedicine shows ROI at ATA]