Remote Patient Monitoring—Understanding by Nurses Who Support Home Dialysis Patients

BACKGROUND: Adherence to home dialysis is the focus of renal nurse support. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) promises improved adherence and clinical tools. Remote monitoring has been available for more than a decade. Limited findings of how nurses use and perceive RPM are available in published literature. OBJECTIVE: To understand renal nurses' experience of RPM when supporting patients undergoing ambulatory peritoneal dialysis at home. APPROACH: Qualitative description of renal nurses' accounts of their experiences of using RPM across three centres delivering support for home dialysis. Focus group and interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and interpreted with the aid of NVivo software. FINDINGS: Participants reported that RPM is valued for the programming of machines remotely. Patient health benefits were described as complex with no direct link to reduced hospitalisations. RPM is a tool that helps maintain relationships with patients. Routine checking of remote monitoring reports was only common when first introduced, and in smaller centres. Costs and data privacy can complicate the uptake. Results were similar across three different centres. CONCLUSION: Renal nurses supporting home dialysis patients monitor adherence to treatment, using RPM as a tool that is most beneficial for the remote adjust of dialysis machine programs, but which also serves as a tool for building on their relationship with patients which in turn supports adherence, thus justifying overcoming barriers to use such as costs or availability of technology.