8- TELEMEDECINE & TELEHEALTH by PHARMAGEEK

Telehealth is emerging as a critical component of the healthcare crisis solution. Telehealth holds the promise to significantly impact some of the most challenging problems of our current healthcare system: access to care, cost-effective delivery, and distribution of limited providers. Telehealth can change the current paradigm of care and allow for improved access and improved health outcomes in cost-effective ways.

 

Telehealth increases access to healthcare:

• Remote patients can more easily obtain clinical services.
• Remote hospitals can provide emergency and intensive care services.

Telehealth improves health outcomes:

• Patients diagnosed and treated earlier often have improved outcomes and less costly treatments.
• Patients with Telehealth supported ICU’s have substantially reduced mortality rates, reduced complications, and reduced hospital stays.

 

Telehealth reduces healthcare costs:

• Home monitoring programs can reduce high cost hospital visits.
• High cost patient transfers for stroke and other emergencies are reduced.

 

Telehealth assists in addressing shortages and misdistribution of healthcare providers:

• Specialists can serve more patients using Telehealth technologies.
• Nursing shortages can be addressed using Telehealth technologies.

 

Telehealth supports clinical education programs:

• Rural clinicians can more easily obtain continuing education.
• Rural clinicians can more easily consult with specialists.

 

Telehealth improves support for patients and families:

• Patients can stay in their local communities and, when hospitalized away from home, can keep in contact with family and friends.
• Many telehealth applications empower patients to play an active role in their healthcare.

 

Telehealth helps the environment:

• Reducing extended travel to obtain necessary care reduces the related carbon footprint.

 

Telehealth improves organizational productivity:

• Employees can avoid absences from work when telehealth services are available on site or when employees can remotely participate in consultations about family members.
• These examples illustrate the some improved outcomes and cost savings being achieved by Telehealth and telehealth programs:
• Home monitoring of chronic diseases is reducing hospital visits by as much as 50% by keeping patients stable through daily monitoring.
• The national average for re-admission to hospitals within 30 days following a heart failure episode is 20%. Telehealth monitoring programs have reduced that level to less than 4%.
• Timely provision of treatments that effectively reverse the consequences of a stroke have risen from 15% to 85% due to the availability of telestroke programs.

 

Telehealth support to Intensive Care Units (often called eICUs) is reducing mortality rates by 15 – 30% and substantially reducing complications and length of stay.

 

Telehealth retinopathy screening programs support early identification of serious eye disease and reduce the incidence of blindness in diabetic patients.