Monitoring Febrile Neutropenia

Within the past several years, various consumer-level devices have been brought to market to provide real-time feedback about changes in patients’ status, including key vital signs that can impact clinical decision-making. Utilization of these technologies is critical to create new patient care efficiencies given ever rising healthcare costs and limited resources. To this end, we are validating a remote monitoring system for febrile neutropenia that includes a thermometer, blood pressure (BP) cuff, and smartwatch with intermittent (hourly) heartrate (HR) measurement. Upon measurement, each device wirelessly transmits data to a central hub via Bluetooth. This remote monitoring system is being validated in an inpatient setting against conventional vital signs measurements acquired by healthcare staff. Once the system accuracy has been validated, we plan to assess this approach for safety and efficiency of remote monitoring in lower-risk outpatient febrile neutropenia patients. Ideally, the system will decrease healthcare utilization by encouraging outpatient management of such low-risk patients with febrile neutropenia via improved monitoring while simultaneously supporting early intervention by providers and caregivers.