Telehealth may be the answer to curbing healthcare costs and it may not be difficult to implement.
According to researchers from the Public Health Institute’s Center for Innovation and Technology in Public Health, “there are 3 keys for Telehealth adoption:
? Breaking down barriers to patient participation, including the cost of receiving telehealth care;
? Concerted effort from numerous stakeholders; and
? Sufficient time to integrate telehealth systems.”
Health care in the United States represents eighteen percent of gross domestic product this past year and will rise to 18.4% of GDP by 2017 according to IMS Research. Yet according to Shane Walker, the senior manager for consumer and digital health research at HIS, the parent company of IMS Research, telehealth technology could stem the costs by decreasing:
? Hospital readmission rates; and
? Home care visits (Irving, PhysBizTech, 2/8).
Revenue from U.S. telehealth services would increase from $174.5 million in 2012 to $707.9 million in 2017 (“Healthwatch,” The Hill, 2/8).
In a separate report released in December no prescription ventolin inhaler 2012, IMS Research predicted that the worldwide market for telehealth services would grow by 55% in 2013, partly as a result of changes stemming from the Affordable Care Act (Parmar, MedCity News, 2/8).
Fortunately, the technology is catching on. There will be a sixfold increase of usage from 2012 rates or 1.3 million Americans utilizing telehealth services by according to a report by IMS Research, The Hill‘s “Healthwatch” reports (Viebeck, “Healthwatch,” The Hill, 2/8).
Three quarters of telehealth service users reside in the United States and represent 227,400 patients currently. Most of these are post-actue care, discharged recently from their hospital admissions.
Typically, the conditions treated were:
- Diabetes
- High Blood Pressure
- Depression and other mental health problems
- Chronic obstructive Pulmonary disease
- Congestive heart failure
This is a reflection of people now taking responsibility for their own health and becoming captain of their own medical team.
If you would like additional help doing this, “Power to the Patient: The Medical Strategist” can aid you with this process. It is readily available at Amazon.com
For further questions, please feel free to contact me.
