Telehealth: A Case Study

Telehealth is an innovative approach to health care that is rapidly expanding in all areas of patient care. It has been shown to be cost effective and is rapidly being integrated into everyday practices from clinics, hospitals, court systems, school systems and even the local drug store.

There are real benefits for both the patient and the clinician. The individual patient has more control and understanding of their long term health condition, and the clinicians utilising telehealth as part of a care pathway can ensure that they are proactively involved in the ongoing wellbeing of their patient, managing timely interventions and helping to improve their patient's quality of life.

The nurse can utilize home telehealth monitoring to enhance the patient experience by providing medical care, treatments, education and support in the convenience of the family home. McGonigle & Mastrian found, “According to regular surveys conducted by the AARP (1996), more than

Many of these barriers exist from lack of essentially knowing the benefits of what the incorporation of telehealth can offer within the aspect of this type of community. At times, there has been a great interest in telehealth surrounding its potential to reduce health care costs along with the improvement of patient outcomes, but at times there has been no known scientific evidence base underpinning it (McLean, Sheikh, Cresswell, Nurmmatov, Mukherjee, Hemmi & Pagilari, 2013).

Telehealth can help reduce high cost hospital visits such as stroke cases, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) cases and other emergencies. There have been recent initiatives that collected data to see if telehealth was a cost effective option for healthcare. One initiative, Baby CareLink, places telehealth units in homes of low-birth weight neonates.12 For this initiative, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston installs the telehealth units in the neonates home for $2,000, and that units replaces a NICU stay of $5,000 per day.12 If a neonate was to stay in the NICU for 7 days, that would be a $35,000 expense that the $2,000 telehealth unit replaces. 12 Different disease states and emergency states will have different cost factors depending on the amount of medical care. However, the amount that a family can save on their newborn by investing in telehealth is quite significant. In a study from the Milwaukee and Iron Mountain Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC) telepulmonary program, telehealth was found to be more cost effective compared to routine care. This study was conducted over a year and telehealth had costs of $335 per patient per year compared to routine care, which was $585 per patient per year, and onsite care was also compared at $1,166 per patient per year.13 A sensitivity analysis was performed on these values, and it did show that the cost-effectiveness telehealth was dependent on successful telehealth consultation, equipment cost, and

Telehealth has been a large topic of debate in recent years because of the economic, political, and regulatory points of view. In deciding outcomes in these areas, it is the responsibility of all healthcare professions to identify information gaps in order to come to the more rational and beneficial conclusion about telehealth (Grace, 2014). Economically, there are concerns regarding the access and affordability of telehealth equipment. At the same time, telehealth is being adapted in ways to be utilized with technological devices that many individuals already have access to like telephones, cellular phones, and personal computers/laptops. Telehealth can positively impact both clients and providers by increasing access to care and reducing the time and costs associated with traveling for health care (Allen, Aylott, Loyola, Moric, & Saffarek, 2015). As telehealth develops technological devices can be made more affordable and can be covered by insurance policies (Thomas et al., 2014). Many nurses functioning as case managers can help provide the tools and resources individuals require to manage their health.

The program includes case management and care coordination from a nurse or social worker. The program is designed to empower veterans to take an active role and manage their healthcare needs. One of the main goals of the home Telehealth program is to improve clinical outcomes and access to care. These outcomes reduce complications, hospitalizations and clinic or emergency visits. The Care coordination component will assist the veteran in giving them the tools necessary to be successful in caring for themselves. Management of this program

cost and remuneration issues, development of organizational protocols for system use, and strategies to promote interprofessional

UNDERSTANDING TELEHEALTH SECTION 1: Modalities/Models High-risk obstetrical telehealth has been used to provide any number of support diagnostic and ancillary services, including nonstress testing, fetal echocardiograms, hypertension and diabetes counseling and monitoring, and a number of others. Nonstress testing, meaning no stress placed on the fetus, is done by placing a belt with a sensor on the abdomen of the mother to monitor fetal heart rate in response to fetal movement (1). Fetal echocardiograms use ultrasound equipment to evaluate the heart of the fetus and assess for cardiac abnormalities prior to birth. These tests are performed most often in the second trimester and provide a more detailed image than a regular ultrasound and show blood flow, structure, and heart rhythm (2). Each of these test results can then be read in the office or remotely via real time teleultrasounds and video technology. Additionally, common medical complications in high-risk pregnancies, such as hypertension and diabetes, can be remotely monitored through the use of a handheld or wearable device and can also be used as an educational/counseling tool. Increasingly, high-risk obstetrical telehealth is making its way into the home, providing patients the opportunity to increase time in between required clinic visits, replace visits, or offer providers rich data on patients in between appointments. This amazing evolution of high-risk obstetrical care is currently underway and is expected to

Technology is the key to the future of health care and the world. Technology is doubling every few years and with these advancements of modern medicine, many lives will be saved. Our book explains one of these emerging technology advancements, Telecare. Telecare is “the remote delivery of healthcare services into the person’s home facilitated by communication technologies that include the use of person-centered reactive monitoring devices.”(Hebda & Czar, 2013, p. 506) This advancement in healthcare will allow patients who are house bound receive the care they deserve. In addition to telecare, electronic aspirin is another emerging technology.

The future faces a number of related goal-driven challenges. The CCHT has cited reduced health care resource use among the targeted high-utilization patients. This impact provides strong economic justification for home telehealth to be an integral component of regular care services for chronically ill veterans at risk for long-term care. Because of the lower marginal cost of adding services to the existing infra¬structure, the VHA is intent on expanding its CCHT program to provide chronic care management, acute care management, and health promotion and disease management for other patients in areas such as weight management, dementia care, and palliative care. They were awarded six national contracts for home telehealth devices and services worth $1.38 bil¬lion over five years. This is particularly challenging as the VHA uses a primary care model that adheres to clinical guide¬lines and sharing of information among

Telehealth is the monitoring via remote exchange of physiological data between a patient at home and health care professionals at hospitals or clinics to assist with diagnosis and treatment. As our society ages and health care costs increase, government and private insurance payers are seeking technological interventions. Technological solutions may provide high quality healthcare services at a distance, utilize professional resources more effectively, and enable elderly and ill patients to remain in their own homes. Patients may experience decreased hospitalization and urgent care settings, and out of home care may not be required as the patient is monitored at home. However, no study has been able to prove telehealth

In this field trip, I am trying to find out the latest development of Information Technology and how these technologies affect our daily lives. Get to know about these technologies, how is it going to improve our lives in the further. This exhibition is about the next generation nationwide broadband network (Next Gen NBN). We get to learnt how Next Gen NBN improved Information Technology, as it offers broadband speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second. With such high speed, more informations can be transferred in one second. This exhibition tell us about how Next Gen NBN improve our lives, work, Interaction and learning. In this essay I am going to discuss three technologies which I think

There are weaknesses in the proposed plans to improve access. In the case of telehealth nothing can replace the hands on analysis of a trained physician. Any type of trauma care will still require an airlift to a trauma center for care. Complications such as reactions to medications, or complications of child delivery, would leave the patient in the hands of under trained staff. Such a program would require an infrastructure of physicians willing to teleconference. Second it would require an internet or satellite link that could not be disrupted.

Telemedicine is the use telecommunications and information technology to provide healthcare to patients located in the remote or distant locations. For example: people staying in the mountainous areas or islands can get medical services right at their home with the help of smart devices or patients who cannot go to the hospital for some reason.