There’s no doubt that telemedicine increases access to healthcare. This access, in turn, improves outcomes and reduces costs. However, creating a telemedicine program requires time, analysis, and resources. How can organizations ensure a return on investment (ROI) in the long-run?
ROI has been—and continues to be—a central theme during the multi-phase telemedicine rollout at INTEGRIS Health, a self-insured provider in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The health system began its telemedicine journey in 1997 when it was awarded a federal rural telemedicine grant from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth to develop a speech teletherapy program accessible to students with disabilities in rural communities. To date, more than 100,000 teletherapy visits have occurred. A decade later, it added TeleStroke emergent neurology consultations to rural emergency departments across Oklahoma. In 2015, INTEGRIS began offering direct-to-consumer telehealth using technology provided by Carena, a vendor specializing in end-to-end virtual care platforms.
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Establishing metrics for ROI has been critical during each of these transitions, says Pam Forducey, PhD, system director of eHealth at INTEGRIS.
“We currently have an eHealth advisory committee that evaluates all prospective projects and services,” she says. “New projects require a business plan with a financial ROI as well as ongoing assessment of clinical and financial performance after launch.”
That ROI comes in many forms, she explains. One example is reducing 30-day readmissions through the use of home-based telemedicine monitoring equipment. Another is reducing travel expenses for physicians traveling across the state to provide regional outreach. Continued patient engagement is another ROI—particularly for patients who would otherwise not travel long distances for 15-20-minute follow-up visits.
In 2016, 80 percent of patients participating in a virtual visit indicated that their primary care physician is not part of the INTEGRIS network, meaning out-of-network patients are entering the healthcare system and using the technology—another aspect of ROI.
Virtual visits may also help INTEGRIS reduce its costs for treating low acuity, non-emergent medical conditions such as upper respiratory infections (URI). In 2016, the cost for onsite visits to treat URIs was $383,702. During the first three months of 2017, costs to treat URI patients virtually was only $9,744, meaning the health system could be on track to save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
“What we do know already is that when strategically planned, telemedicine is a differentiator for our health system,” says Forducey. “We are meeting consumers when and where they want or need urgent primary care services.
Photo: Ian Hooton, Getty Images
