There was a feeling of cautious optimism among many of the attendees of the annual American Telemedicine Association conference this year in Austin that attitudes towards telemedicine are shifting shifted and this sector of healthcare is on the road to mainstream acceptance.
Telestroke programs have been around for some time to better help hospitals diagnose and triage patients in emergency rooms in a limited timeframe have successfully proven their need. Other aspects of telemedicine like eICU to cope with the shortage of intensivists, and telepsychiatry to improve access to behavioral health are gaining ground. And in at least 25 states payers have bought into its value. Here are three things that telemedicine is doing that will help it move towards mainstream acceptance without blowing a tire along the way.
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Providing access to specialist consults A startling statistic offered by Dr. E. Ray Dorsey, an associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and director of The Johns Hopkins Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center in his presentation on the virtual visits panel discussion at the conference is that 40 percent of patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease don’t have a neurologist. Johns Hopkins offers a program to provide free virtual house call consults to patients in their home and also works with nursing homes for Parkinson’s disease patients. Parkinson’s disease is a good fit for telemedicine because many of the symptoms are visual – a patient’s gait, the way they speak and move. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has been using telemedicine for pediatric neurology as part of a pilot program because there are only a handful of specialists in the region. For primary care physicians faced with challenging cases having a pediatric specialist provide their insights could lead to faster more efficient care.
Providing faster second opinion. 2ndMD is one of several companies using telehealth as a way to provide second opinions. It works directly with employers and does not claim to offer treatment. A physician vetted by the company will speak with users after they provide the relevant patient records, scans and test results. It’s the kind of system that works better with electronic medical records.
Improving patient satisfaction In a panel discussion on virtual visits, Barb Johnston of HealthLinkNow and Dan O’Neil from the Mayo Clinic as well as Dorsey, the consensus from feedback from patients was that they felt that they got more attention from physicians in their own homes and that they had a better rapport with their physicians. It was viewed as a customer service.