Key takeaways
- Remote patient monitoring (RPM) allows patients to collect their medical data wherever they are with a wearable device or app, then share it securely with their provider.
- RPM shifts the site of care to a patient’s home or other setting, eliminating the burden of visiting a provider and alleviating strain on healthcare systems.
- RPM that uses artificial intelligence (AI) can give providers greater, real-time insights into a patient’s health, enabling more precise and timely treatment.
- Johnson & Johnson is exploring the potential use of RPM in clinical trials, cancer care and other areas of healthcare.
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 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.
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.
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.
Advancing the possibility of RPM in cancer care
Another way Johnson & Johnson is exploring RPM is by evaluating its ability to monitor cancer patients who are receiving treatment with bispecific antibodies outside a traditional hospital setting.
The early data is promising. In a real-world study conducted in 2025, cancer patients were asked to use RPM devices to capture their vital signs in the days following treatment, when patients must be closely monitored.
The RPM devices triggered clinical alarms when patient vitals reached predetermined thresholds, prompting review and intervention by a dedicated clinical monitoring team.
An analysis of outpatient monitoring with RPM compared to inpatient monitoring showed that RPM supported timely identification and escalation of safety events, allowing patients to receive these therapies safely in an outpatient setting to broaden access to innovative medicines.
Supporting remote care options is one way Johnson & Johnson helps drive more connected healthcare. Central to the company’s approach is upholding commitments to trust, security and ethical responsibility of safeguarding critical patient data.
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.
This is an update to a story originally published October 8, 2025
