Remote Care Partners

The Opportunity

Making Telehealth Easy for Patients and Providers

Even before the advent of COVID-19, Telehealth represented one of the fastest-growing categories in health care worldwide. At the time, most analysts predicted a CAGR of 15-20% as industry investment continued, security concerns were resolved, and providers and consumers grew more comfortable offering and receiving care via Telehealth solutions.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the adoption of remote care capabilities has drastically increased. This is partly out of necessity, and partly as an effect of both patients and providers recognizing the benefits remote care can offer many types of treatment. According to a recent McKinsey report, remote office visits and outpatient care increased by an astonishing 78x between February and April 2020, eventually stabilizing at roughly 38x the pre-pandemic level.

Despite this rapid growth, many challenges remain around telehealth visits and remote treatment. Telehealth adoption still varies tremendously based on medical specialty and individual office capability. Remote Care Partners, based in Tampa, Florida, is working to apply leading-edge IoT capabilities that remove the barriers to remote care and make it easy for patients, doctors, and support staff to take advantage of the benefits.

“Reliable telemedicine data represents a crucial tool for both optimizing patient care and managing billing and operations effectively.”

James Gledhill CTO, Remote Care Partners

The Solution

A Smart Hub That Simplifies Patient Care and Billing

Remote Care Partners’ innovative patient monitoring and telehealth solutions make remote monitoring and other telemedicine processes simple and easy for patients and healthcare professionals alike. Providers and back-office staff can offer services on a “plug and play” basis with automated time tracking and billing and simplified patient onboarding. Patients get the benefit of enhanced communications, personalized care reminders, and remote monitoring.

When remote monitoring is warranted, Remote Care Partners makes it as easy as plugging the company’s purpose-built SmartHub into a wall outlet. The Smarthub is specifically designed to require virtually no patient interaction: it requires no set-up, transmits data without connecting to a WiFi network, and needs no smartphone applications to manage.

SmartHubs can be provided in-office or shipped directly to patients along with compatible devices like wireless blood pressure monitors, spirometers, scales, thermometers, pulse oximeters, or glucose monitors. Data collected from a patient’s device or devices can be sent to healthcare providers through the SmartHub automatically.

This data includes both health statistics that can inform the patient’s continued treatment and also usage data that can be applied to create more accurate bills. A continuous record of patient data gives providers a more complete understanding of each patient’s condition and helps to more accurately address any underlying health concerns.

Why Soracom

Powerful Multi-Carrier Coverage and Strong Support

Because not every patient has reliable WiFi service or a high degree of comfort with technology, RCP chose to connect their SmartHub using cellular data. With cellular, RCP can ensure that devices connect upon activation and maintain full control over every SmartHub to ensure consistent monitoring. All a patient has to do is plug the device in. No smartphone, app, or home internet connection required.

RCP chose Soracom for its secure, multicarrier cellular coverage, built-in network management tools, and available eSIM options.

“RCP was created to help improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare system costs by making remote care management easy for healthcare providers. Reliable telemedicine data represents a crucial tool for both optimizing patient care and managing billing and operations effectively,” said James Gledhill, CTO of Remote Care Partners. “With Soracom, we’ve found strong and consistent connections throughout our service areas, and Soracom’s pay-as-you-go philosophy aligns well with our own shared success model for customers.”

RCP uses Soracom’s API and dashboard to help ease integration with back-end systems and manage a growing network of connected SmartHubs. RCP also takes advantage of Soracom’s Napter service, which provides secure access to their devices on demand for remote maintenance and troubleshooting.

“As a remote healthcare solution, we need to be able to solve any technical issues remotely,” said Gledhill. “Soracom makes maintenance simple and easy.”

The Outcome

Helping Patients Navigate Modern Healthcare

As telemedicine adoption continues to expand and reimbursement models shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, Remote Care Partners working actively to support both patients and healthcare professionals.

The RCP platform now serves thousands of patients, delivering crucial services from remote monitoring and care management to ongoing patient education. Thanks to RCP, it’s easier than ever for medical practices to interact safely and cost-effectively with patients. RCP also makes it easy for practices to adopt leading-edge telemedicine capabilities by offering patient enrollment services, revenue assurance, financing, and training to support successful rollouts.

While telehealth has grown rapidly in recent years, the category is truly still in its infancy. Entering 2022, RCP is well-positioned to lead the way as remote care increasingly becomes the first preference of both patients and providers.