Clinical Outcomes of Passive Sensors in Remote Monitoring: A Systematic Review

Remote monitoring technologies have transformed healthcare delivery by enabling the in-home management of chronic conditions, improving patient autonomy, and supporting clinical oversight. Passive sensing, a subset of remote monitoring, facilitates unobtrusive, real-time data collection without active user engagement. Leveraging devices such as smartphones, wearables, and smart home sensors, these technologies offer advantages over traditional self-reports and intermittent evaluations by capturing behavioural, physiological, and environmental metrics. This systematic review evaluates the clinical utility of passive sensing technologies used in remote monitoring, with a specific emphasis on their impact on clinical outcomes and feasibility in real-world healthcare settings. A PRISMA-guided search identified 26 studies addressing conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia, cancer, cardiopulmonary disorders, and musculoskeletal issues. Findings demonstrated significant correlations between sensor-derived metrics and clinical assessments, validating their potential as digital biomarkers. These technologies demonstrated feasibility and ecological validity in capturing continuous, real-world health data and offer a unified framework for enhancing patient care through three main applications: monitoring chronic disease progression, detecting acute health deterioration, and supporting therapeutic interventions. For example, these technologies successfully identified gait speed changes in Parkinson’s disease, tracked symptom fluctuations in cancer patients, and provided real-time alerts for acute events such as heart failure decompensation. Challenges included long-term adherence, scalability, data integration, security, and ownership. Future research should prioritise validation across diverse settings, long-term impact assessment, and integration into clinical workflows to maximise their utility.