Healthcare Magazine March 2015 | Page 21

TELEMEDICINE insurance companies to help reduce costs or improve the quality of care .
Telemedicine has the capability to not only become an investment opportunity , but a trend that can improve the doctor-patient relationship , as well .
But while the industry is poised to grow exponentially in the coming months , there are still some major obstacles to overcome . accessible , patient treatment can begin immediately before the patient even gets off the phone , resulting in better outcomes for the patient and the health care .” The promise of telemedicine has been heard before , but it looks as though this year that promise is set to be realized . Consumers are excited to receive the service and providers finally have both the financial incentive and technological capability to make it a reality .
“ By creating a normalized set of patient and care data and by integrating these connected devices , telehealth providers can both lower the cost of care and improve overall patient outcomes ,” Patel said .
He additionally advised providers to invest in scalable models of integrating data from a variety of devices , rather than relying on a single system or product alone .

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Post-treatment care and compliance are provided .
“ Prevention and compliance should be the real goals of telemedicine and are the way to truly drive significant reduction in costs ,” Patel said . “ To do this , providers need to understand the patient ’ s past medical history and also capture all of the new data associated with telemedicine into an electronic record that follows the patient .”
Monitoring patients in the first 30 days after discharge to prevent readmissions is one of the great opportunities for telemedicine and remote monitoring .
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