how to make patient monitoring smarter, simpler, and more specific

Technology is taking much of the guesswork out of medicine. Innovations in patient monitoring and data collection now allow doctors and other healthcare professionals to track patients' conditions over time, sometimes without even requiring in-person visits.

Anyone interested in the biggest questions around human health and wellbeing – how we live, how we care for each other, and how these systems can be improved – should be acutely aware of new progress in patient monitoring, particularly remote patient monitoring (RPM). Healthcare is becoming increasingly decentralized, enabling telehealth for more democratized access to care.

Remote sampling – the collection small, precise volumes of blood or other biological fluid using microsampling devices and a lancet for a quick finger-stick – is a crucial part of the expansion of healthcare to more remote, virtual and decentralized models.

Thanks to advances in technology, it is now possible to get a tremendous amount of information from a very small biological specimen. Collecting specimens in the precise volumes needed for bioanalysis is now possible at a reasonable cost and with easy convenience.

Finger-stick microsampling devices such as the hemaPEN^® and the Mitra^® device, based on VAMS^® technology, provide the missing link between the push towards remote healthcare pathways and the technical innovations that make them possible.

With microsampling, it is less important for patients to visit clinics to receive optimum care. In many cases, they can receive care in the comfort of their homes, offices or elsewhere.

This is made possible through telehealth communications (online portals, digital chat, video conference call, email) with care providers, which is paired with remote blood sample collection by anyone, anywhere.

Health providers can ship blood sample collection kits to their patients or study cohorts for sample collection on the go.

End-users can collect their own finger-stick blood samples using the supplies in the kit box. They can ship their samples to the lab using the provided envelope and dropping it in the nearest mailbox.

There are clinical labs and toxicology labs that can now process dried blood microsamples. After the lab receives and process the samples, the care provider can consult with patients through Zoom or another video conferencing program.

Thus, remote microsampling helps enable continuous medical monitoring without the inconvenience of frequent in-person appointments. It allows healthcare professionals to get more information at more appropriate times, for more useful insights, without unreasonable costs or additional burden on patients' bandwidth.

Much success in microsampling has already been achieved in the realms of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), toxicology, clinical trials, infectious disease studies, and other areas.

• It eliminates the hematocrit (HCT) bias that reduced the effectiveness and slowed the adoption of earlier small-volume dried blood collection methods, generating results comparable to those from the wet blood gold standard.
  
  
• It’s been validated for at-home HbA1c monitoring for pediatric patients with diabetes.
  
  
• And it works well for montoring immunosuppressants, antiepileptics, antipsychotics, and other vital and serious long-term drug regimens.
  
  
• It's also used in substance abuse recovery and other situations where needle blood draws aren't the most appropriate solution.

Microsampling improves patient comfort and convenience. What’s more, money is saved on transportation, clinic visits, and other costs associated with onsite doctor or clinical trials visits traditional methods. Switching to a microsampling workflow for patient monitoring can save considerable sums of money over time.

Remote microsampling is poised to enable further innovations in areas such as:

• Precision medicine – facilitating more precise, tailored regimens of care, using patient-centered models,
  
  
• Predictive care - anticipating, say, a cardiac event, before it occurs, allowing plenty of time for the right intervention,
  
  
• Health and wellness - allowing fitness fans and nutrition & wellness buffs to monitor their own biomarkers in real time,
  
  
• Aging in place - encouraging markedly better quality of life with fewer visits to the clinic or hospital, despite medical challenges.

If you’re invested in the growth and development of patient monitoring, now is the best time to explore microsampling. More information about remote microsampling for TDM can be found via our Microsampling for Drug Monitoring page.