The idea that the local family doctor would pack up his black bag and drive out to a patient's house to see how said patient was doing from the depths of said patient's own sickbed used to be the kind of thing reserved for Norman Rockwell paintings. But while this phenomenon largely faded away, technology has helped to revive this practice, at least somewhat. LiveWell Nebraska recently described how a host of technologies both familiar and new are coming together to advance telehealth principles.
Throughout the United States—and particularly in places like Nebraska and Iowa—telehealth is gaining plenty of new ground. With video conferencing systems, patients can talk to the doctor as if the doctor were in the room, complete with being able to show the doctor all those various rashes, growths, and similar skin issues that are plaguing the patient in question. Other technologies allow patients to perform some degrees of blood work and other tests, including the ability to measure a heart rate or a blood sugar level.
By way of example, recent exchange saw Dr. Michael Barsoom—a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Omaha--consulting with a 25 year old woman, Nicole Gronenthal, about issues of a pregnancy. An ultrasound was given at a doctor's office much closer to Gronenthal, but thanks to the video conferencing system installed at said doctor's office—Dr. Keith Vrbicky by name, who reportedly spent about $30,000 putting the system in—Gronenthal could get access to the unusual specialist who was located much farther away than could readily be driven. Gronenthal was located about 110 miles from Omaha when the telehealth exchange took place.
While Vrbicky's system sounds expensive, on many levels it's actually saving money overall. The Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) started turning to telehealth as far back as the 1990s, and has advancing the concept ever since, bringing out certain devices like the “health buddy” that can measure, record and transmit a set of vital signs like blood sugar level and blood pressure for further analysis. The technology costs between $300 and $400 per patient annually, but in turn saves about $2,000 per patient annually by keeping said patient out of a hospital.
The technology behind telehealth has been spurring the house call back to the forefront. Recently, Colorado's True North Health Navigation system got involved in the practice, and brought out a variety of health tools that could be put into a van and driven out to a patient, rather than having the patient come to a hospital for treatment. Telehealth measures are proving a major help in rural healthcare, where the ability to get medical treatment can often be limited by how far a patient can drive. Plus, even those who live comparatively close to healthcare sources are finding telehealth not only a time saver, but a savings over going to a hospital, a savings the hospitals are likewise taking advantage of.
Telehealth represents some major possibilities in terms of cost savings, time savings, and an overall improvement of efficiency in a healthcare system that needs exactly that. All of these savings, all of this potential is driven, meanwhile, by effective conferencing systems in both video and voice. It's already catching on, and just how far it will go is a question that can be solved only by sheer time, but the end result is looking pretty good, and may ultimately provide a healthcare system that's more accessible, less expensive, and better for the change.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
