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Remote Patient Monitoring Gains Prominence: 3 Stocks to Watch

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The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on a global scale with most countries scrambling to find solutions to negate its impact. Apart from claiming a staggering number of lives, the pandemic has affected the world economy on an unprecedented scale.

From an economic standpoint, per Dallas Federal Reserve president Robert Kaplan, the U.S. economy will witness historic contraction in the second quarter, while unemployment rate will remain high at the end of 2020. Per Kaplan’s projection, the gross domestic product will decline at an annualized rate of 35-40% in the second quarter and is expected to recover in the second half of the year.

With respect to healthcare, the struggle has been universal and herculean. With 9.5 million cases worldwide, which is expected to increase in the coming weeks, it is needless to say that the nightmare is far from over.

In such a scenario, remote patient monitoring (RPM) has been playing a crucial role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, RPM was gaining prominence prior to the pandemic but this public health emergency catapulted it to a key strategy in the fight against COVID-19. Needless to say, with most sectors grappling to deal with the market turmoil, it will be prudent to capitalize on the scenario by focusing big in this space.

RPM: A Key Strategy Amid the Pandemic

To put it simply, RPM is a form of AI-driven technology, which has been designed to collect patient data outside of traditional healthcare settings and carefully monitor patient health status.

RPM has been playing a key role in reducing the burden of hospitals and healthcare systems. RPM tools comprising apps, outreach and wearables have been crucial in keeping patients who do not require immediate critical care out of the clinics.

For instance, some providers are utilizing blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters and other devices to monitor patients who do not require hospitalization, thereby minimizing the risk of exposure to the virus. In fact, in March, the FDA issued a new policy that expands healthcare providers’ ability to use non-invasive, FDA-approved RPM devices that can measure patients’ body temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate and blood pressure.

Coming to remote telemonitoring, it allowed clinicians and care providers to maintain their quality of care for patients that they were unable to physically examine during this crisis, without getting exposed to the virus.

The groundwork for effective utilization of RPM has seen a significant boost in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The rising awareness of RPM products owing to the gradual reopening of the economy is anticipated to extend to at-home usage by individuals. Further, the FDA has relaxed regulations on 21 types of remote patient monitoring devices for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect healthcare workers from exposure to the virus.

In this regard, ResMed (RMD - Free Report) launched cloud-based remote monitoring software for ventilators and Lumis bilevel devices across Europe in May, giving clinicians access to respiratory information through computers or smartphones.

Stocks in the Spotlight

Going by the aforementioned discussion, the investors might want to look into the following three stocks that have stepped up to provide support to the medical community during this crisis.

Medtronic plc (MDT - Free Report) has been making significant efforts to aid the medical community during this crisis. The company’s COVID-19 Virtual Care Evaluation and Monitoring solution utilizes a virtual assistant to evaluate patients through a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guideline-based survey for COVID-19 symptoms. This solution is available to U.S. health systems, health plans and employers.

This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has an estimated long-term earnings growth of 7.7%. This apart, the company’s return on equity currently stands at 12.2%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.’s (MDRX - Free Report) electronic health record (EHR)-agnostic patient engagement platform — FollowMyHealth — has proven crucial to efforts in curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Notably, FollowMyHealth is a mobile-first, enterprise patient engagement solution for providers, hospitals and health systems. The stock presently carries a Zacks Rank of 3.

The company has an expected long-term earnings growth of 6.3%. Apart from this, the company’s return on equity currently stands at 4.9%.

In March, Masimo Corporation (MASI - Free Report) announced the full market release of Masimo SafetyNet, which is an economically scalable cloud-based patient management solution, created to enable clinicians in providing care to patients in hospital settings and non-traditional settings remotely. Further, the company unveiled Masimo SafetyNet-Open, designed to help businesses, governments and schools manage employee and student health and safety better during COVID-19. Masimo SafetyNet-Open helps in coordination of the continuous monitoring of people through an array of sensors and an app. It can help organizations to figure out patterns better, which may support contact tracing on the back of a centralized dashboard.

The Zacks Rank #3 stock has an expected long-term earnings growth of 21.7%. This apart, the company’s return on equity currently stands at 17.1%.

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