A Cedars-Sinai Medical Center team said there were signs in the previous research it analyzed that remote monitoring could help COPD patients, although the evidence was far from definitive.
In addition, their analysis of 27 clinical trial results failed to provide enough evidence that the devices can improve the outcomes of patients with other conditions. Four of the trials the Los Angeles researchers looked at were for COPD.
Their report, “Impact of remote patient monitoring on clinical outcomes: an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, appeared in the journal npj Digital Medicine.
“As of now, we don’t have enough evidence that they [remote devices] consistently change clinical [disease] outcomes in a meaningful way,” Brennan Spiegel, director of Cedars-Sinai Health Services Research and senior author of the study, said in a press release. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t.”
