Henry Ford Health System conducted a pilot of Pharos Innovations' "device-free" remote patient monitoring solution that reduced expected hospital admissions for enrolled heart failure patients by 36 percent after six months. The healthcare system launched the pilot last July and the pilot concluded at the end of 2008.

By "device-free," Pharos Innovations means that its solution does not require care providers to dispense any particular remote monitoring equipment like wireless sensors, connected medical devices, tablets or video terminals to their patients for home health monitoring. Instead, Pharo's survey-based system relies on the existing devices or technologies that a patient already uses. If they prefer, patients can interact with their care providers via surveys over their home phone landline, their cell phone or over the Internet.

Apart from the survey questions, patients may also use generic bathroom scales or glucometers in some cases to record appropriate health metrics to include in their survey responses for additional tracking.

It's a funny designation -- calling a remote monitoring solution "device-free." Of course, as more than 90 percent of the U.S. population now has a mobile phone, it seems likely more patients will choose to interact with care givers through that device. Having a customizable solution like this one, however, certainly lowers some barriers to entry for those facilities with a patient-centric approach to remote monitoring.

For more on Pharos Innovations' pilot at the Henry Ford Health System, read the company press release

PBS' NewsHour recently ran a segment on Billings Clinic's use of Pharos Innovations' technology: View it here