Everyone has their opinion when it comes to how to provide more affordable, efficient healthcare. The healthcare providers want this, and the health insurance companies want that, and the government says we should do it this way, and …

Hey, wait a minute… Did anyone ever stop to ask the patients what we want?

Isn’t it amazing how consumers are often force-fed the types of services they are provided? For instance, we rely on the government to determine how the health care system will be reformed, but do we really have a voice?

We assume that doctors and care facilities will be progressive enough to begin implementing Health Information Technologies into their infrastructure, and that they will be forward-thinking enough to start now in managing our health records electronically, and that they will do everything they can to streamline delivery of healthcare with new and widely available resources — such as telemedicine.

The questions are: how willing and eager are healthcare providers and facilities, and are they really listening to what the patient wants?

Well, there is a study out in the June edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine that emphatically states that patients, even older patients, want telemedicine to play an integral part in their general healthcare. So listen up providers!

To borrow a line from the study summary…

"We set out to study patient attitudes toward electronic personal health records and other emerging and future electronic health information technologies," explains the study’s lead author Jan Walker, RN, MBA, Instructor in Medicine in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. "And we learned that, for the most part, patients are very comfortable with the idea of computers playing a central role in their care."

In fact, she adds, patients said they not only want computers to bring them customized medical information, they fully expect that in the future they will be able to rely on electronic technology for many routine medical issues.

The study summary can be found here.

It seems many Americans want drastic change in the provision of their healthcare. We need to realize that without our voices being heard through the government, and through studies such as this, the prospects are not good.

Even practices and procedures that have been legislated are often not enacted in a timely manner. This all takes time, and the more that healthcare providers can understand the consumers’ want and need for telemedicine, the better.

If you’d like to read an article about online telemedicine, and its benefits, check this out.

Brian Bujdos

I saw a lot of incredible concepts, tools, and general genius at the American Telemedicine Association’s Annual Meeting & Expo in Las Vegas earlier this week.

But, do you know the best thing about the show? Each of the 150-plus exhibits translate to expedited, improved and more cost-effective healthcare. And we can use every bit of that.

Considering how much money we’re spending on healthcare in the U.S. these days ($2.4 trillion in 2008), everyone wants to be in the mix when it comes to making a buck.

No Vacancy on Showroom Floor

So not one, but two exhibit halls were filled with companies ranging from small start-ups to big giants like Cisco, Intel, Honeywell and General Dynamics. Anyone who has technology applications is looking for ways to use those applications in healthcare. Take Intel’s recent partnership with General Electric. The two companies will invest $250 million over the next five years to produce telemedicine products for home healthcare/monitoring.

One of the most notable trends in healthcare is the move toward the transmission of data via cellular/mobile devices. Healthcare is going to be at our fingertips both at the keyboard and on our mobile devices. The military has instituted a program, for example, called the mCare Cell Phone Project. It utilizes cell phone data exchanges between patients and providers to modify behaviors and improve clinical outcomes by messaging patient-specific notifications, reminders and questionnaires.

Many vendors displayed video-related technology. Applications included patient-to-doctor video, as well as doctor-to-doctor or specialist-to-specialist.  Images are also sent electronically in real time, eliminating the need for face-to-face appointments with several specialists, in some cases. Many disciplines within healthcare (such as radiology, dermatology, etc.) have their own applications to transmit data.

Medical devices themselves are advancing quickly, including bluetooth blood pressure monitors, thermometers, glucose meters, caloric/activity meters, etc. These and others can all be tied directly into a database to monitor a person’s real-time vitals on a second-to-second basis, etc. 

Latest & Greatest in Telemedicine

For a comprehensive summary of new, innovative products that were found at ATA 2009, click here. 

For information about specific vendors who exhibited at ATA 2009, 32 interviews have been made available by the ATA.

Brian Dolan from MobiHealthnews.com also blogged from the ATA show and provides a comprehensive recap.

Plenty needs to be done about our current healthcare system, but it was very reassuring to walk through the ATA 2009 exhibit halls knowing that healthcare will continue to become more and more efficient, and effective, thanks to telemedicine.  

The need for efficiency and cost savings is apparent just by looking at these stats from the National Coalition on Healthcare:

* Healthcare spending in the United States is projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012 and $4.3 trillion by 2016.

* Healthcare spending equals 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.

* In 2008, the United States spent 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare. This percentage is expected to reach 20 percent by 2017.

Telemedicine Is Not Going Away

As time goes on, doctors and patients will inevitably continue to understand the benefits of telemedicine. Right now, many doctors and patients are wary of advances such as electronic health records, the prescribing of lifestyle medications online, administering healthcare or patient monitoring electronically, and the list goes on.

However, many patients, especially those in sparsely populated areas, sorely need these and other types of healthcare benefits provided by telemedicine. It means less trips to the healthcare provider, which translates to time and cost savings, which are two reasons why telemedicine is advancing more rapidly than ever.

Another reason is that the Obama administration values telemedicine. Billions of dollars are being dedicated to telemedicine projects through the stimulus/recovery plan, including $20 billion in health IT infrastructure and Medicare/Medicaid incentives to motivate healthcare providers and organizations to electronically exchange the health information of patients.

As one doctor at the Cisco booth at ATA 2009 stated, "telemedicine is a freight train that cannot be stopped."

Brian Bujdos

Within seven years, more than 55 million people will receive healthcare electronically on a normal basis. That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 72 percent for telehealth subscribers, according to InMedica, the medical arm of IMS Research.

Although telehealth is not appropriate for all health conditions, many healthcare providers are realizing the benefits of shifting the treatment of many chronic conditions from medical institutions into patients’ homes. This can be done through regular monitoring that allows doctors to manage patient care more efficiently.

At first, many people balk at the idea of gaining access to a doctor through a TV monitor, or receiving healthcare through a monitoring device such as one that measures blood-pressure. But a simple search on Google reveals that telehealth and telemedicine are in fact taking off. 

Newly inaugurated Barack Obama has made telehealth and health IT solutions a key component of his platform, which provides $20 billion to help the healthcare industry computerize patient records.

Brian Bujdos