Timing for TeleHealth couldn't be better

TeleHealth has great benefit to patients, medical professionals, payors and hospital systems. In every segment costs are reduced and service levels increase – through convenience if nothing else. This is not to say that, when necessary, TeleHealth is a replacement vehicle for critical care or a physician’s in-person assessment of a situation.

Emerging wireless technologies are transforming healthcare. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) devices with embedded cellular and Wi-Fi technology provide the final critical link in the TeleHealth eco-system. This new value chain is connecting remote wireless intelligent devices through a broadband network accessing clinical, analytical and administrative medical applications. Adding to this is a standards organization to ensure interoperability and therefore creating true convergence in an explosive industry.

In addition, the continued evolution of fixed broadband networks provides a robust foundation for connecting the patient to the caregiver organization. Today’s broadband and wireless networks:

• Are more powerful in transmission and throughput capacity,
• Have much better coverage (footprint) than in prior years,
• Have the ability to encrypt transmissions for security, and
• Are widely connected to hospital systems, doctors’ offices, pharmacies, convenient care, at home, assisted living and skilled nursing centers.

This enables caregivers to transmit data and to pull electronic medical records much more efficiently. Immediate access to these systems facilitates a level of care giving on a remote basis that was not possible even a few years ago. Clearly such access to Patient Medical Information (PMI) must be protected within the HIPAA and other security rules.

How can we benefit from all of this? One answer is more efficient care giving using TeleHealth. A recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation points out that the top 5% of chronically ill patients consume 50% of the healthcare spend in the US. The healthiest 50% of the population consume only 3.4% of the healthcare spend.

Again, while we are not advocating TeleHealth as the only method to treat ill people, we do think there are inherent efficiencies available to the current system. We are welcome any comments.