Historically, a patient with a medical condition that needs to be monitored would have to visit a healthcare professional’s office or some other clinical setting. Thanks to advances in healthcare technology, patients now have more opportunities to shift the site of care and share many types of timely health information with a medical provider from their own homes.
This advancement is known as remote patient monitoring (RPM). With RPM, patients can collect their own data wherever they are, usually with a wearable device or an app. The data is then shared securely with their provider, who uses it to help assess treatment response and manage the condition as well as advise on any next steps.
RPM and other innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI), have the potential to give providers deeper, real-time insights into a patient’s health status, potentially resulting in more precise and timely treatment. With a growing percentage of consumers using connected monitoring devices to aid in their healthcare (43% in 2024 compared to 34% in 2022), such innovations could change the trajectory of healthcare.
Exploring the potential of RPM in clinical trials
An area that is especially ripe for innovation is clinical trials. In clinical trials, patients customarily visit with their clinicians for scheduled assessments. It is more difficult or not feasible to monitor all aspects of a patient’s health outside of those visits.
Inspired by the advantages of remote patient monitoring and the potential of AI to advance healthcare, Johnson & Johnson is pioneering new approaches to treatment that put the power in the hands of patients and with an everyday tool—their smartphone.
Inspired by the advantages of RPM and the tremendous potential of AI to advance healthcare, teams at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine are pioneering new approaches to assessing patient treatment responses that put the power in the patient’s hands and with an everyday tool—their smartphone.
One focus is to pioneer ways that people with psoriasis (PsO) and atopic dermatitis (AD) could share smartphone images of their condition while undergoing treatments. The challenge is that home-generated images vary in quality and might not meet professional assessment criteria. Also, there has not been a reference database available to help physicians accurately apply remotely administered professional assessment criteria to assess disease activity.
Team members saw the potential for AI to help innovate a new path. As AI relies on large volumes of data, the team embarked on a journey to create an industry-leading database of skin images through an observational study with PsO and AD patients. Using this dataset, the team developed deep learning models capable of assessing PsO and AD severity with an accuracy similar to that of human experts. The team is looking ahead to the future and further assessing this option in clinical trial settings.
Supporting remote care options is one way Johnson & Johnson helps drive more connected healthcare. By developing tools that can help monitor patients wherever they are, the company aims to reduce patient burdens like unnecessary travel, alleviate strain for healthcare systems facing staffing shortages and improve health outcomes.
