Hospital at home and remote monitoring might just be the future of anesthesia.
Matthew Meyer, MD, associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, spoke with Becker's to discuss what will disrupt the anesthesia industry next.
Note: This response has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Matthew Meyer: I'm looking at hospital at home and remote monitoring as real opportunities for anesthesiologists. I know that that's not where they are initially, but my whole job when I'm in the operating room is to watch vital signs over a long period of time and make sure a patient just does well. That's my goal, to have a patient, watch their vital signs, and anticipate issues and just ensure that they're doing well and also anticipate any issues from little perturbations that I see in these vital signs. I really like the opportunity that there is out there. I think that anesthesiologists need to get a foothold in that area and really market themselves as having the right skillset to be the people running these programs.
I also think the more we can keep patients out of the hospital [the better]. First of all, patients are happier being outside of the hospital. Second of all, it's less use of resources. Third, it very well may allow us to address problems well before they happen. I think there's a lot of clever things we can do if we're smart with the way in which we interpret all the data we're gonna start to get.
You're going to be using artificial intelligence and machine learning to create really sophisticated algorithms that help you to sort through this information, but at the end of the day, you're gonna need someone to sit and look at this and say, "Is this a problem or is this not a problem?" There's gonna be plenty of triggers to any formula, any algorithm at this point.
I just like it. I think there's a lot of opportunity for wins there. I would tell people running these companies and anesthesiologists looking for interesting career paths that this may very well be the future. It's definitely part of the future.