Launch of RICOH Remote Patient Monitoring Enablement Designed to Help Ease Healthcare Staffing Challenges Amid Unprecedented Industry Burnout Crisis

New Managed Service Supports Clinician and Patient Experiences Amidst Shortfall of 1.1 Million Registered Nurses¹

EXTON, PA, October 4, 2023– Ricoh USA, Inc. today announces the launch of RICOH Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Enablement, the newest end-to-end managed services offering for health systems that is designed to help fuel more efficient and sustainable RPM workflows that can lead to improved patient and care delivery team experiences. RICOH RPM Enablement comes at a time when health systems are grappling with a simultaneous monumental shift to virtual care delivery and an unprecedented shortage of healthcare workers. This care worker shortage has reached a nationwide crisis level where there aren’t nearly enough healthcare staff to fill vital RPM management roles, leading to alarming care gaps impacting the most vulnerable patient populations. RICOH RPM Enablement is designed to help health systems close this gap and to help lead to improved patient experiences by integrating into existing virtual care programs to support the deployment of remote patient monitoring system devices, inventory tracking, logistics, and device returns.

The healthcare worker burnout and staffing shortage – most recently worsened by COVID – is putting extraordinary constraints on health systems to staff RPM management roles, which limits their ability to scale virtual programs and impacts the standard of patient care. According to the Surgeon General, 98% of healthcare workers worry about their own burnout¹, which is likely accelerating nurse retirement, fueling a shortfall of 1.1 million registered nurses¹. The Mayo Clinic's research has also revealed that U.S. doctor burnout has reached an all-time high of 63%¹. Additionally, 98% of clinicians are concerned that burnout can reduce quality of care and 82% of the public believes that a worker shortage will impact their health². Technology can be the difference maker in systemic change – and clinicians agree as 50-70% welcome the change to use technologies in their work³.

“Clinicians currently spend over 50% of their working hours using EHRs⁴. That’s their reality and a massive contributor to burnout, so our mission is centered on pivoting that time back to patient care through supporting the modernization, automation, and enablement of the care workflows that are most critical to health system’s success,” said Rory Fitzpatrick, Vice President, Industry Vertical Marketing, Ricoh North America. “RPM Enablement is the latest demonstration of our commitment. In this period of burnout crisis, the healthcare industry has an opportunity to commit to workers’ emotional and physical wellbeing – and Ricoh is dedicated to supporting positive systemic change with sustainable, scalable solutions.”

RPM is often considered one of the largest value drivers of virtual care with applications from primary care through chronic disease management. In fact, when RPM is part of a care plan, the Mayo Clinic has shown that 72.5% of remote patient monitoring patients comply with the care plan’s tasks, including taking medications and monitoring vitals⁵. Further, only 9.4% were readmitted within 30 days versus 20% of patients not using RPM⁶.

Ricoh is uniquely positioned to help address workflow challenges resulting from the qualified healthcare worker shortage due to its large footprint and depth of managed services experience in the industry. Ricoh currently supports thousands of healthcare organizations with various aspects of their business, including 9 out of 11 of the largest for-profit hospital systems and 22 out of 32 of the largest nonprofit hospital systems, with about 3,200 facilities under its support – and is also responsible for managing over 1 million devices in the United States through more than 2,100 U.S. field technicians across various industries.

For more information about Ricoh visit https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/industries/healthcare. Additional details about RICOH Remote Patient Monitoring Enablement can be found here: https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/industries/healthcare/rpm-enablement.

¹ Surgeon General’s Advisory, Addressing Health Worker Burnout, May 2022
² AMA, Pandemic Pushes U.S. Doctor Burnout to All-time High of 63%, September 2022
³ Deloitte, Addressing Health Care’s Talent Emergency, November 2022
⁴ Bain & Company, A Treatment for America’s Healthcare Worker Burnout, October 2022
⁵ JMIR Publications, Understanding the Association Between Electronic Health Record Satisfaction and the Well-Being of Nurses: Survey Study, June 2020
⁶ Healthcare IT News, How RPM can solve many patient and provider problems in rural areas, June 2023