Hospitalizations among nursing home residents may be able to be reduced by switching from on-call physicians to physicians available via telemedicine, according to a study in Health Affairs.
Researchers studied the introduction of telemedicine in a for-profit nursing home chain based in Massachusetts. The chain agreed to stagger the implementation of telemedicine for the sake of the study, and hospital staffers were unaware of the study.
Before the telemedicine intervention, off-hours medical needs were handled by the residents' primary care practices, most often by the on-call physician who provided care of instruction remotely over the telephone. After the intervention, off-hours needs were met through a third-party service that connected the resident and nursing home staff with a clinician through a two-way videoconferencing system.
Results showed the telemedicine intervention led to a 4.4 percentage point drop in hospitalizations, but only at the nursing homes that were the most engaged with the service and used it the most. The authors recommend nursing homes that adopt telemedicine work to ensure staff buy-in to the system through appointing a telemedicine staff 'champion' or holding staff meetings promoting the service.
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