Given high patient demand, high utilization of care and evolving reimbursements, telemedicine will be integral to keeping care accessible and demands on clinical staff reasonable, according to Ed Reece, MD, CMO, and Dan Olsen, senior solutions advisor of Cisco Systems, at their talk at the Becker's Hospital Review 5th Annual Conference in Chicago on May 16.
"The virtual model is taking place in home, retail and corporate settings. Forty-three percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted a telehealth platform. Every large system is beginning to deploy a telehealth strategy across variety of service lines," said Mr. Olsen.
While telehealth systems had previously been relegated to regional or rural care centers and were grant-funded systems, today most systems are investing in telehealth using their own capital in profitable models, he added. "Physicians don’t' have to go to outreach clinics to see patients there, because technology is not the barrier anymore," he said.
Dr. Reese is a hand surgeon responsible for 300 square miles of patients. With telemedicine, he says, patient satisfaction is high, and it's easy for him to stay connected to his fellow practitioners. "With an electronic health record, physicians are much less connected. But with Telehealth, I can talk to my colleagues in real time," he said.
While the technology is still in intermediate stages in most hospitals, the pair expected adoption and advancement of telehealth strategies to pick up with the evolution of healthcare legislation and the values and goals of healthcare itself.