As technology evolves and advances, the role and importance of telehealth expands with it. Telehealth, often referred to as telemedicine, can improve patient satisfaction and provide access to specialized care that is currently nonexistent in some hospitals.
Telehealth is the provision of health services using communication technology, such as video or telephone conferencing to the patient's home, wearable or implantable health monitoring, and remotely operated robotic surgery, and it is an area of healthcare that is so new that there are no legal precedents set to date. The decision to move forward means weighing the benefits and the risks of this new technology. Will it provide cost-effective care or will the cost of equipment, physician per diem coverage/payments, and possible new and unknown liability overshadow the benefits? Will it increase patient satisfaction or will the lack of personal connection between physician and patient increase the likelihood of being sued? The answers to these questions remain to be seen.
Studies of healthcare systems in the U.S. and abroad show telehealth technology is both a clinically sound and cost-effective method for treating patients remotely. Those who champion its value say it reduces the time patients spend seeking care and it eliminates extra or unnecessary appointments. A strong backer of this new method of treatment, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), last year announced plans to shift 30 percent of Medicare payments from traditional methods to alternative payment models by the end of 2016. The alternative payment models they refer to by and large pertain to telehealth.
The goal of telehealth is to deliver high quality care while also lowering costs and inefficiencies across the health spectrum. This concept allows administrators to look at different approaches to health management using technology and Health IT. One thing is clear: the move to telemedicine is on the horizon and is crucial in rural populations for delivering value-based quality care.
Author Ann Whitehead, RN, JD, is Vice President of Risk Management & Patient Safety at the Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc. (CAP) in its CAPAssurance, A Risk Purchasing Group, program that offers hospitals, large medical groups, and other healthcare facilities access to top-rated liability protection and risk management services.