Advancing virtual care: benefits of telehealth and telemedicine

Essentially, the terms telehealth and telemedicine are both used to describe provider-to-patient or provider-to-provider engagement via real-time interactive communication for remote care delivery which could include medical, diagnostic and treatment-related services, or clinical training. While the exact definitions vary and the terms are often used interchangeably, both telehealth and telemedicine fall under the broader category of virtual care.

Telehealth or telemedicine as a modality holds value for both acute and chronic care management and can help address gaps in today’s healthcare system. For acute care, if the patient is already in the hospital, telehealth can be used for provider-to-provider consultation. A doctor on-site can obtain expert guidance on a patient's case and exchange information in real-time from a specialist doctor in a remote hospital through a technology command center or remote care facility.

On the chronic disease side, telehealth can be very effective because it alleviates some of the healthcare burden of addressing both access to care issues and the limited capacity of the hospitals. With telehealth, chronic patient conditions can be monitored from a distance and in the comfort of the patient’s home via sensors. This reduces the need for patients to travel to the hospital for regular checks and often empowers them to take more active control in managing their condition.

Some common chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, hypertension) are incurable for many patients but, with virtual care, healthcare providers can help control the symptoms and potentially increase the quality of life for patients with remote monitoring and management. By monitoring a patient’s routine at home, providers can see when vital sign readings deviate from normal and determine the best course of action from the data algorithms. This is very helpful in the transition of care from hospital to home, especially in the first weeks when the patient may require more frequent check-ins to ensure their recovery stays on track.

Technology is a key enabler for telehealth and telemedicine because the online communication experience between the patient and the doctor, or provider to provider, must be seamless. Accessibility, interoperability and connectivity are essential so that providers can access the information they need to make real-time care decisions.

Supporting patients in a variety of care settings both in-patient and virtually requires robust healthcare informatics technology that can support hybrid models and dynamic workflows to deliver secure, actionable insights wherever and whenever clinicians need it. By synthesizing patient data into meaningful and actionable insights, informatics solutions help clinicians to prioritize what tasks are most important to improve the quality of care for patients.

Safeguarding the information exchange of telemedicine is equally important to enabling it. If healthcare data is not secure, available, or reliable, clinicians do not have the insights they need for decision-making at the point of care and that can affect care quality and patient safety.

According to the Future Health Index (FHI) 2024 global report, almost 9 in 10 healthcare leaders (89%) are seeing a positive impact of virtual care in easing staff shortages in their organization. The benefits of virtual care cited in the survey range from increased capacity to serve patients to improved collaboration between staff in different locations to a reduced need for on-site staff in certain roles.

For example, Philips and U.S. healthcare provider CoxHealth co-designed an in-house solution to potentially help improve patient outcomes and increase staff satisfaction. The solution allowed its nurses and physicians to move seamlessly between the bedside and the virtual care team environment. The solution is based on the close integration of Philips eCareManager enterprise telehealth software and Philips Capsule Surveillance software. CoxHealth now has a centralized database of patient information that ensures bedside and virtual care teams always have access to the same up-to-date information so they can collaborate efficiently and effectively.

The healthcare industry is still gauging what is the right size or mix of virtual care services for various patient populations. Regulators, policy makers and payors are not yet fully committed to continuing on-par reimbursement of virtual care services as a modality of treatment until they see more substantial and long-term data on the value.

This is not an indication that the modality is not valued. However, until the right regulations, financial incentives and payment reforms become permanent, healthcare providers may be challenged to invest more in virtual care programs until the right financial incentive and payment reforms (from regulators, policy makers and payors) are in place to support it.

Healthcare industry organizations such as the American Telemedicine Association (ATA), are working to address barriers to the broad adoption of telehealth and virtual care delivery, including emerging platforms that support technology-enabled healthcare and creating guidelines on principles of practice.