Irish medtech firm’s digital solution shown by researchers to reduce health service costs by 92%

A new digital healthcare approach, developed by patientMpower, an Irish digital health company specialising in solutions for remote patient monitoring, has been found by independent researchers to reduce health service costs by 92% and cut outpatient appointments by 80%.

The results were confirmed in a randomised controlled trial conducted by researchers in Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and The University of Manchester.

The trial examined the benefits of remote patient monitoring in lung transplant patients and the findings, which have just been published in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, follow other successful Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) of patientMpower’s self-monitoring solution, including one in which hospitalisations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were reduced by 82%.

Randomised control trials are the gold standard in demonstrating clinical results, but are rarely applied to digital health, so the new study findings represent a major development for patientMpower and a strong endorsement of their product’spotential to support healthcare change at scale.

In addition to respiratory healthcare, patientMpower’s system is already used to support the management of patients with heart and kidney disease as well as those in maternity care with the potential for it to be become a central part of global outpatient healthcare across a wide range of conditions.

The findings of the latest UK trial show the need for patients to attend clinic visits was reduced by 80% when patientMpower’s technology was used to remotely assess their health parameters and symptoms. There was also a significant 92% reduction in health service costs compared to usual clinic-based care, while patients reported six-hour savings in travel time on average.

The results were achieved without differences in patients’ symptoms, clinical parameters, adverse events or unscheduled visits between groups, indicating that the improvements in service efficiency and patient experience did not impact care quality.

Founded in 2015 and based in The Digital Hub in Dublin 8, patientMpower’s technology is already used across seven countries. The system supports the monitoring of patients remotely reducing hospital and clinic visits while allowing for the early identification of complications.

The research underpinning the new findings was prompted by the preference of patients for virtual care. Clinicians at Manchester NHS Trust and patientMpower, who have been working together since 2020, developed a technology-enabled care pathway designed to safely reduce the need for routine outpatient visits while maintaining high-quality patient care.

Eamonn Costello, CEO of patientMpower, said: “Today over 40% of people in Ireland live with a long-term condition, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or asthma. The predicted 175% surge in Ireland’s over 65-year-olds will dramaticallyincrease demand on ambulatory care over the next two decades. As such, solutions to increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of outpatient and integrated services, while ensuring a high quality of care, are imperative.

“patientMpower specialises in doing just this. Our technology reduces pressure on outpatient and integrated care services, and prevents acute admissions, by enabling care teams to deliver the level of patient-centred care they cannot provide with traditional models. Our focus is not only on driving innovation to support population-level health, but on proving our solutions work.”

Costello added that patientMpower has already benefitted from system-wide adoption of its technology as a direct result of the results secured in Manchester.

Manchester NHS recently renegotiated its agreement with the Dublin-headquartered medtech firm, extending its use of the company’s software across a number of new care pathways, with over 1,000 patients under management.

The solution has also been integrated with Epic, Manchester’s electronic health record, further embedding the technology to streamline clinical processes. Expansion in other centres is underway, as services seek to manage budgets withoutimpacting patient care. The trial was supported by UK Government funding, designed to accelerate the scaling of patient-focused innovation.

patientMpower’s technology is already well known to Irish healthcare professionals, having supported the delivery of the home-based care of about 10,000 Covid-19 patients during the pandemic. It has since been adopted across Europe andNorth America, with clients including the Rotterdam-based centre of excellence ERASMUS MC, Belgium’s UZ Leuven, and NYU Langone Health in New York.

In Ireland, the National Kidney Transplant Service experienced a 70% reduction in clinic visits after implementing the solution. The service recently expanded its use of the software through an integration with its electronic health records. This allows patients to access their latest medication schedule directly on their phone, reducing the potential for medication errors and freeing up valuable time for specialist nurses.

Commenting on the findings, Professor Conall O’Seaghdha, Consultant Nephrologist and Transplant Physician with the National Kidney Transplant Service at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin said: “A careful balance between innovation and evidence is essential to healthcare. As we have seen with the solution in use at National Kidney Transplant Service, gold standard clinical validation gives healthcare professionals the confidence to embed technology into our everyday practice. System-wide adoption has to be evidence-based.”

While many virtual care solutions focus on enabling early discharge from acute hospital care, often using contract healthcare staff to oversee the monitoring of patients, patientMpower specialises in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of ambulatory care pathways.

This reduces pressure on outpatient and integrated care services and helps prevent acute admissions by enabling existing care teams to deliver more personalised, patient-centred care at scale, that cannot be achieved with traditional models.This was evidenced by a randomised control trial conducted at Tallaght Hospital which found that the technology enabled an 82% reduction in hospitalisation when used to support self-management of the common lung condition, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

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