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.