Alma’s Technology: Video-based Telemedicine

I think it’s time for your telehealth appointment with Dr. Lang. Let me get him for you.

Alma Jones, the central character in CAST’s High-Tech Aging video, is sitting in her apartment reading the newspaper when her daughter Suzanne remembers that Alma has a doctor’s appointment.

Alma has just returned home from a hospital stay following her recent stroke. She’s not quite feeling back to normal. So getting in the car and driving to the doctor’s office would be a burden for her.

Ordinarily, Alma might have considered skipping her appointment with Dr. Lang because she’s feeling tired and a bit unsteady. Thanks to technology, however, Alma doesn’t have to miss this important post-discharge medical consultation.

Instead, Suzanne uses Alma’s tablet computer to launch a video-conference with Dr. Lang. Alma and Suzanne spend the next half hour talking with the doctor about Alma’s health status and treatment options.

They have this conversation from the comfort of home. And Dr. Lang doesn’t have to leave his office to make a house call.

Video-based telemedicine — which allows doctors and patients to confer by video-conferencing — helps Alma’s doctor stay up-to-date on her post-hospitalization recovery and to make needed adjustments to her care plan based on information he receives from Alma and her home-based monitoring devices. The result is peace of mind and better health for Alma and a sharp reduction in the likelihood that she will experience an expensive hospital readmission.

I’ll be exploring video-based telemedicine in this installment of our series on the technologies that appear in the High-Tech Aging video.

What is Video-Based Telemedicine?

Video-conferencing systems are widely used in the corporate world so business colleagues can collaborate easily and more productively across long distances. The technology is making its way into the field of health care and long-term services and supports.

Clinicians working in a variety of care settings—including long-term and post-acute care organizations—are starting to use this technology to confer with one another and with their patients, residents and clients. High-tech devices that facilitate audio and video communication are making all this possible.

Uses for Video-Based Telemedicine

According to a recent Report to Congress on aging services technologies written by CAST and NORC at the University of Chicago, video-based telemedicine can facilitate:

  • Routine check-ups and status checks. Some telemedicine equipment allows a physician to examine a patient in another location with the help of diagnostic instruments. In some cases, the doctor is assisted in his examination by a nurse who is in the same location as the patient. 
  • Consultations. Clinicians in different settings can use video-based telemedicine to consult with one another about the treatment of a shared patient. Consultations between emergency department physicians and remote specialists have been particularly useful in selecting appropriate treatments after stroke. 
  • Telepharmacy. Pharmacists can use teleconferencing to provide medication counseling and education to people living in rural areas and those without easy access to traditional pharmacy services. 
  • Telemental health. A review of 65 studies concluded that video-conferencing technologies can help behavioral health professionals deliver efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality treatments to patients who cannot easily make it to the office.

Benefits of Video-Based Telemedicine

CAST’s new white paper, Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring for Long-Term and Post-Acute Care, suggests that video-based telemedicine provides improved access to health care for:

  • People living in rural areas where travel would be difficult.
  • Hospital patients or nursing home residents who are too ill to travel.
  • Homebound individuals.
  • People with disabilities.
  • Individuals who don’t have easy access to transportation.

Telehealth Selection Resources

CAST has developed 4 resources to help you select your next telehealth solution:

  • Our set of 6 Telehealth and RPM case studies highlight how providers went about implementing these technologies, the impacts they experienced, lessons they learned and pitfalls to avoid. 

If you are in the market for a telehealth system, I urge you to check out all of these resources.