Telehealth Industry Fact Sheet:
What is telehealth?
Telehealth is a revolutionary tool health
care providers use to care for, monitor and educate patients in
their place of residence. Advanced telehealth technology systems,
such as those developed and marketed by American TeleCare, are user-friendly,
offer two-way audio and video interaction and guarantee a variety
of patient/provider benefits. Health care providers can conduct
in-office and in-home visits on-line by monitoring patient readings
and tracking vital signs for improved and sustained health. Telehealth
offers health care providers access to real-time patient data that
is transmitted via phone line from the patient’s location
to the provider’s desktop.
How does telehealth work?
Telehealth technology enables patients
– who best meet their provider’s telehealth profile
– to receive effective, personalized treatment through an
easy-to-use patient system. American TeleCare patient stations feature
one-button activation in a self-contained unit that is usually installed
in a patient’s home. The system links directly with a remote
central station at their health care provider’s location through
traditional telephone lines.
A live, two-way connection via telephone
lines allows health care providers and patients to have direct audio
and video access. Patients and providers engage in virtual check-ups
using medical instruments – such as a telephonic stethoscope,
blood pressure meter, glucose meter, pulse oximeter and a digital
scale. The peripheral equipment connects to the patient station
and readings are downloaded to the clinician’s system. The
provider easily tracks their patients' progress, assesses their
condition and makes recommendations in their plan of care.
Why consider telehealth technology?
Telehealth technology and services enable
patients and providers to interact from virtually any location.
Telehealth adds a true technology dividend enabling more sophisticated
care with greater continuity, while reducing time and expense. Other
specific value-added benefits include:
Elimination of travel time for patients
and providers
- A telehealth nurse can see approximately
15 patients per day from the convenience of his or her office
compared to five or six in-home visits per day including travel
time.
- Physicians participating in outreach
programs can consult with patients living in remote locations
without incurring drive time.
Ability to address the growing nursing
shortage
- The number of patient visits per nurse
can increase 200 to 400 percent.
- Agencies can significantly increase their
patient capacity despite the current nurse staff shortage without
increasing overhead.
Enhanced disease management and clinical
quality
- American TeleCare’s technology
and experience continues to bring providers developed solutions
leveraging the best clinical practices to treat congestive heart
failure, wound care, DM and COPD.
- Frequent check-ups and on going monitoring
through sophisticated telehealth equipment results in earlier
intervention and preventative patient care to prevent costly hospitalizations
and intense treatment programs.
When was telehealth introduced?
American TeleCare sparked the telehealth
revolution when it introduced the first Home Telehealth system in
1993.
American TeleCare’s role
in Home Telehealth:
American TeleCare, Inc., was founded
in Minneapolis in 1993, as a result of a vision of Dr. Khalid Mahmud.
Dr. Mahmud is an Internist-Hematologist-Oncologist who had previously
founded Medisys, a successful homecare company which merged with
three other national homecare companies.
Dr. Mahmud pioneered the concept of Home
Telehealth based on his belief that not all homecare visits required
hands-on care. Using live, interactive video and voice and medical
peripherals, a patient could have a valuable consultation with a
healthcare provider at considerably reduced cost to the healthcare
system.
This notion was especially timely
given the current climate of healthcare in which care is increasingly
ambulatory and delivered in outpatient settings, and in organizations
which are under significant pressure to reduce costs while maintaining
quality of care and patient satisfaction.
Home telehealth is touted as the
solution to this challenge.
Home Telehealth was pioneered in 1993
by American TeleCare founder Khalid Mahmud, M.D., F.A.C.P. In 1994,
American TeleCare was the first company to develop and test the
first home telehealth unit consisting of an aluminum box with a
blood pressure meter and an attached videophone with a two and one-half
inch screen providing seven to ten frames of video per second. |
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