Benefits of a Patient-centered Remote Therapy Monitoring Program Focusing on Increased Adherence to Wound Therapy.

INTRODUCTION

Patient nonadherence to wound care protocols may impact the efficacy of modalities, such as negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT). Recently, a remote therapy monitoring (RTM) system has been devised for use with NPWT for home care patients.

OBJECTIVE

Three home care patients receiving NPWT are presented to examine the relationship between patients using the RTM system and Virtual Therapy Specialists (VTS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Consent was secured from patients with either multiple comorbidities and/or wounds of varying complexity. Wounds were assessed as per their initial presentation, and all patients were discharged home with an RTM-equipped NPWT system to apply continuous subatmospheric pressure to their wound. Dressings were changed every 2 to 3 days.

RESULTS

All 3 patients were women (age range, 53-72 years), who presented with the following wound types: recalcitrant abdominal wound, acute wound following ventral hernia repair, and dehisced wound following a hysterectomy. Patient 1 was treated with RTM-equipped NPWT for a duration of 88 days (6 nonadherent vs. 82 adherent days) and was adherent to the therapy 93.2% of the time. Patient 2 was treated with RTM-equipped NPWT for a duration of 57 days (8 nonadherent vs. 49 adherent days) and was adherent to the therapy 86.0% of the time. Patient 3 was treated with RTM-equipped NPWT for a duration of 16 days (2 nonadherent vs. 14 adherent days) and was adherent to the therapy 87.5% of the time. Each patient presented with a barrier to therapy adherence (eg, lack of access to residential clinical support, technical issues, or work demands) that was managed by VTS interactions.

CONCLUSIONS

In these 3 cases, RTM-equipped NPWT and the patient-centric exchanges with the VTS through adherence calls helped promote consistent usage of RTM-equipped NPWT to address the patients' therapeutic needs and increase therapy adherence.