By Mark Shaver, Chief Strategy Officer, University of Maryland Medical System
As the newly appointed Chief Strategy Officer of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), I have the privilege of helping lead the strategy of one of the most dynamic healthcare environments in the country. UMMS is a nearly $6 billion private, not-for-profit health system affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine—the oldest medical school in the United States.
With more than 25 percent of the state’s hospital-based emergency care delivered in our hospitals, UMMS touches nearly every corner of the state, from the dense urban areas of Baltimore City to the suburbs of many counties to the deep rural communities of the Eastern Shore. Few health systems in the nation are operating on this scale while simultaneously preparing to enter the nation’s first AHEAD (Achieving Effective Health Care Through Accountable Design) value-based payment models with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation.
That national reach has shaped our core concept of long-term health monitoring (RHM): The time has come to move from regional implementation to an integrated, enterprise-level and ultimately national strategy.
At UMMS, remote monitoring isn’t a technical system – it’s a way to transform care delivery. Our mission is patient-centered: to deliver timely, integrated, proactive care that keeps people healthy at home, reduces unnecessary hospital use and ensures that geography or zip code is never a barrier to getting the right quality of care.
We see RHM as the missing middle layer—filling the gap between episodic ambulatory care and acute inpatient settings.
Defining the Role of Remote Monitoring in Patient-Centered Care
Remote monitoring has played a key role in addressing two ongoing challenges across our diverse markets:
- Timely intervention for high-risk patients, especially those with chronic diseases that often require emergency care.
- Continuously coordinated provision, especially in rural areas and underserved communities where transport and access gaps can lead to avoidable deterioration.
One of our first success stories came from our northern market, where our Comprehensive Care Center developed an integrated remote monitoring model for heart failure. By incorporating connected devices, streamlined virtual touch points, and integrated care management workflows, the program achieved a 20 percent reduction in CHF readmissions.. Those results proved that remote monitoring can meaningfully change outcomes when embedded in clinical practice – not as a digital add-on.
This data ultimately fueled a multimillion-dollar grant to establish the UMMS Comprehensive Heart Failure Network, which will include remote monitoring, virtual bridge clinics, community outreach, social needs assessment, care management and housing support strategies across the system that allow for early intervention and reduce preventable hospitalizations. It represents a blueprint for how UMMS will scale its RHM programs to other chronic conditions across the state.
Scaling Requires Integrated Technology and Strong Data Pipelining
The most important technology in UMMS is not the devices themselves, but the layers that make the data clinically meaningful. Our Access Center is already building the backbone of the entire country, including the creation of a digital infrastructure, and the integration of telemedicine, digital consultation, and consultation between services. Through the Access Center’s digital infrastructure, UMMS coordinates cardiac care, neurology, oncology, orthopedics and emergency referrals throughout Maryland. This model helped integrate telemedicine, digital consultation, interfacility virtual care and more than 161,000 virtual visits this year, including the successful expansion of tele-sitter programs and specialized digital contact.
Remote monitoring only scales when data flows through integrated dashboards, triggering actionable insights and easily connecting to electronic records, care management platforms and predictive models. Our work in reducing readmissions and remote monitoring of CHF is already showing measurable ROI through reduced utilization, predictable staffing needs and improved patient experience. Additionally, our NEST (Remote Fetal Heart Monitoring) system extends our capabilities beyond traditional monitoring of the chronic condition.
Complementary—Not Changing—Traditional Care Models
Remote monitoring does not replace traditional care; it expands. The most effective systems operate as hybrid models that include virtual check-in, automated alerts, nurse-driven access, home-based diagnostics and in-person visits when clinically necessary. We see RHM as the missing middle layer—filling the gap between episodic ambulatory care and acute inpatient settings.
Partnerships That Make RHM Work
The UMMS remote monitoring strategy relies on joint cooperation with:
- Technology vendors, providing devices and integration platforms
- Payers, particularly Medicaid MCOs, Medicare Advantage plans, and federal agencies are designing value-based models
- Civil society organizations, which help address housing, food security, transport and social decisions that remote monitoring alone cannot solve.
Maryland’s Total Cost of Care and the upcoming AHEAD model create a unique opportunity for health systems and payers to co-invest in physical infrastructure that improves statewide outcomes.
What Will Divide Leaders in the Next Five Years
Successful health systems with remote monitoring will share three characteristics:
- Business-wide integration instead of site-specific pilots
- Data interoperability that makes remote monitoring clinically viable
- A value-based operating model that rewards keeping patients healthy at home
UMMS is preparing for this future now. By expanding our Access Center capabilities, scaling proven RHM models across our diverse markets, and aligning with the AHEAD model, we are building not just a system-wide infrastructure – but a statewide framework for the future of hybrid patient-centered care in Maryland.
