In the health care industry, one of the most costly technologies around is the one that is going to help hospitals and medical centers engage in remote patient monitoring. Now the Center for Connected Health and the Center for Technology and Aging have formed a partnership that has allowed the two companies to develop a web-based tool that can be used to analyze the return on investment (ROI). The tool is set to go wide after five separate medical groups located in California did extensive testing on the tool.
Because of the potential costs for remote patient monitoring, there have been very few payers who were willing to engage in the practice. The companies who refused to cover that service usually argued that they were not able to see the ROI, if one existed. With changes brought in the healthcare field by the ACA, there has been a bit of a movement towards RPM services and this tool will tell companies who are thinking about taking the practice what kind of ROI they can expected depending on how they carry out the task.
Kamal Jethwani, corporate manager of research and innovation for the Center for Connected Health (CCH), talked about the benefits of this new tool in a recent release saying, "This new tool not only assists program managers to evaluate financial ROI, but it also identifies potential program efficiencies, making the ROI tool effective for both evaluation and decision making.”
Jethwani said that the tool is basically set to remind people of a Turbo Tax-like setup. Users are able to go step-by-step through the process, entering costs and revenues of their process and then seeing what the final ROI would be. The tool is also able to project the costs and gains of specific programs over a long period of time, allowing users to see what they can expect down the road. This means they will also be able to see how their ROI can improve if they change certain aspects of their service.
Edited by
Ryan Sartor
