Deluged by Covid-19 patients, hospitals turn to remote monitoring to deliver care at home

Desperate to free up beds for only the sickest Covid-19 patients, hospitals nationwide are considering the use of an emerging generation of technologies to monitor patients from their homes. They want to avoid the fate of Bergamo, Italy, where centralized care in hospitals appears to have contributed to a sharp rise in the infection rate and death toll, leaving health care workers overwhelmed. Doctors in that city issued an urgent plea to counterparts across the globe to care for more patients outside hospitals. That means ramping up digital tools, making sure doctors and patients are adequately trained to use them, and integrating them with other parts of a hospital’s technology infrastructure, including electronic record keeping systems. STAT’s Casey Ross explains what’s involved.