A Plug-In a Day Helps Keep Sickness at Bay

Devices Extend Medical Checkups' Reach

Get ready for the daily doctor's checkup -- over the Internet.

Armed with a growing array of health-monitoring devices for the home, health-care providers are keeping closer tabs on their patients. Heart patients are plugging their bathroom scales into phone jacks so nurses can watch for sudden gains -- a possible sign of worsening disease. Diabetics can transmit blood-sugar values to a nursing station so that potential problems can be spotted quickly.

Electronics makers Honeywell International Inc. of Morristown, N.J., and Royal Philips Electronics NV of Amsterdam are rolling out a new generation of monitors equipped with video hookups to link patients to their nurses over their television sets. For heart-failure patients in particular, digital monitoring at home appears to head off complications.

The machines can cost as much as $150 a month per patient. But with hospital costs for patients with chronic conditions soaring, some pilot projects have found that by detecting ominous symptoms early, tele-monitoring can reduce rates of hospitalization and, in some cases, help to improve patient outcomes.

"This kind of care will keep people at home and out of hospital," said J. Edward Hill, president of the American Medical Association.

The benefits of monitoring for some conditions, including diabetes and asthma, aren't yet proved. The challenge now, care providers and insurers say, is determining which devices work best and which types of patients benefit most.

Hill, a family doctor, also cautioned that digital monitoring shouldn't be viewed as a substitute for in-person care by a doctor. "Taking care of people without having an established relationship with the patient is extremely risky," he said.

Still, faced with growing numbers of chronic-care patients, coupled with nursing shortages in some areas, many providers of in-home care are increasingly relying on tele-monitoring to track patients' vital signs and symptoms.

The digital help allows a nurse to manage more patients, industry officials say.

Device makers and software companies are rolling out a slew of new products, counting in part on the maturing of broadband connectivity to fuel demand for wired devices.

Honeywell's HomMed medical-equipment division, which has sold 40,000 of its Genesis vital-sign monitors for home use, is launching a new model later this year with a video link-up and camera to allow nurses and patients to see each other, said Herschel Peddicord, HomMed's president and chief executive. By peering right into patients' living rooms, nurses will be able to check if a wound is healing well and if a patient is injecting insulin properly, Peddicord said. Both the older Genesis and the new video-enabled monitor will sell for about $3,500.

Later this week, consumer-electronics giant Philips is launching Motiva, which includes a broadband link to connect the patient's television set with the nursing station, although it doesn't actually enable a two-way videoconference between nurse and patient. Motiva transmits the patient's vital signs and weight to the nurses, and if there is a problem, such as weight gain, the program sends a message back to the patient's television set.