2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The at-home remote monitoring sector of healthcare is a growing industry. This healthcare market is valued at $24 billion, and it is projected to reach $166 Billion by 2030 [1]. This growing industry has unique challenges and can promote unique learning opportunities for undergraduate biomedical engineering students [2]. A collaborative industry-classroom program was developed along with [XXXX], a local remote patient monitoring company. This new program was envisioned to prepare upcoming biomedical engineering undergraduate students for the needs, technology, and opportunities in the industry of at-home remote patient monitoring.

The program was created with both academic and industry outcomes in mind. This program was structured as a semester-long internship with weekly classroom meetings. While in their internship, the students worked shifts in remote monitoring, interacting with patients and communicating with them. They also work on weekly professional reflections to report on their experiences. They attend two seminars throughout the whole experience on policy, legislation, or any other business requirement. Students are required to perform two interviews with stakeholders or individuals integral to the business. The experience culminated with a project that required students to create a solution related to disability policy, workforce management, health/behavioral safety, or technology in the company. In the classroom, students were assigned complementary readings on the design process, completed weekly reflections on their learning experiences and weekly readings, and discussed the project, the progress, and the resources they required from either faculty or industry mentors.

Being a pilot program, a few challenges were identified. The challenges include framing an adequate assessment framework and balancing the synergy between the work students perform inside and outside the classroom. The current solution to tackle these challenges was implementing a professional identity assessment [3], as well as utilizing the reflections to better understand their experiences and what needs arose from the program.

[1] Verified Market Research (2022) Global Remote Patient Monitoring Market Size By Component (Services and Software, Devices), By End-User (providers, Payers), By Geographic Scope and Forecast. URL: https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/remote-patient-monitoring-market/
[2] DEVINE, B. Assessing the Value of Remote Patient Monitoring Solutions in Addressing Challenges in Patient Care. Value in Health, [s. l.], v. 25, n. 6, p. 887–889, 2022.
[3] Patrick, A., & Choe, N. H., & Martins, L. L., & Borrego, M. J., & Kendall, M. R., & Seepersad, C. C. (2017), A Measure of Affect toward Key Elements of Engineering Professional Practice Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio.