Bulky, expensive equipment is no longer required to deliver telemedicine. Today’s consumer technology is enabling increased access to telehealth. But what does this tech look like, and how does it work?
Telemedicine wouldn’t be possible without technology. But what does this tech look like, and how does it work?
It used to be simple to divide telemedicine, and its associated technologies, into two broad tracks, said Pramod Gaur, founder of two telehealth companies and chair of the American Telemedicine Association’s special interest group on mobile health. There were synchronized telemedicine video encounters, often to access rural patients, and remote patient monitoring, typically for the chronically ill.
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“That’s how it was for many, many years,” Gaur said.
The game changer: the explosion a few years ago of mobile technology. Suddenly, bulky and expensive video equipment was no longer necessary for teleconsultations, and a new segment of consumer-to-provider telemedicine emerged.
“This is truly technology enabled,” Gaur said. “It’s primarily driven by consumer electronics like Facetime and Google Hangouts and Skype.”
But those technologies lacked encryption, so it took the industry to create encrypted video solutions that were HIPAA compliant. Telehealth industry leaders include companies such as Doctor on Demand and Teladoc.
“The key, besides encryption, is to compress it,” Gaur said, “so it doesn’t take an enormous amount of data, yet you still get a good quality picture.”
Then, about a year ago, insurance companies started offering reimbursements for video consults.
“This allows a consumer at home another choice rather than going to the neighborhood urgent care clinic or emergency room,” Gaur said. “They have the option to conduct a video consult from their home.”
Telemedicine has traditionally been associated with providing access to rural populations, and that’s still the case today. Additionally, low-income groups, as well as those on Medicaid and Medicare, are gaining access to healthcare via telemedicine.
One way technology continues to enable access through telemedicine is with mobile kiosks, in which technicians temporarily set up shop in underserved communities to provide locals the opportunity to get a quick blood pressure check, for instance. For his part, Gaur is working to advance “assisted telehealth,” in which a low-level technician (often a trained college student) would assist with these readings and checks. Not only do these community-based telehealth solutions increase access, Gaur said, but they also lower healthcare costs.
In the coming years, we can expect continued innovation in the technology that makes telemedicine possible. Cloud computing will further enable the interoperability of telemedicine, Gaur said, and wearable trackers could become interoperable. If your scale and your tracker talked to each other, for instance, you’d be more likely to notice how a decreasing step count correlates to an increase in weight.
On the provider side, the ability to get a patient’s activity log, along with vital signs, is a huge opportunity. But we need the right technology to do that, Gaur said, because all the information collected must be presented in the same context as the provider’s EHR system.
“That is going to open up a tremendous amount of opportunity,” Gaur said. “That will give actionable information for a provider to be able to predict what’s going on.”
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Christina Hernandez Sherwood is a freelance writer and editor in the Philadelphia area. She covers health and business. Her work has been published in consumer, custom, and trade outlets, including Reuters, The Guardian, the AARP Bulletin, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Geico Now, Lodging, and Risk Management.
