Home-Based Tech on the Rise in the Modern Healthcare Pecking Order

The time has come for healthcare leadership to reckon with the fact that investment in home-based healthcare technologies is a priority that cannot be ignored, particularly considering how the so-called “silver tsunami” of an aging U.S. population will best be addressed by telehealth, in-home care, and other convenience-driven health services. This category is best defined as any diagnostic and/or screening tools that are viable for use in non-clinical settings for improved comprehension of overall health conditions as well as preventative care, including weight scales, thermometers, and pressure cuffs, among other diagnostic tools that assess biometrics. Also included are the bevy of smart wearables on the market, chronic disease-management devices such as respirators and CPAP machines, and all kinds of remote monitoring devices.

In years past, these valuable innovations were often largely limited in coverage as well as use to seniors on Medicare. Modern capabilities have now brought them to the forefront of home care, and features such as Bluetooth integration have the means of incorporating devices like digital scales and digital glucometers to simplify the measurement of biometrics and the transmission of data to personal health records. “The greater value in smarter tools is that they can alert the individual or their physician to potential health issues,” said Travis Rush, Chief Executive Officer of Reperio, a vendor of at-home biometric screening technologies. “One of the most obvious and tangible examples of this is technology that detects elevated blood-glucose levels, a red flag for prediabetes or diabetes.”

The resulting ability to put individuals in the know concerning their health and present them with myriad chances to improve it with basic lifestyle adjustments makes home health technology a crucial component of modern healthcare.