Home Healthcare Through Telemedicine
Part of the problem of health care costs way that most health services are provided. For hospitals represented 31.1% of total expenditure on health and is known to be expensive. Average price for 1 day in hospital in 2002 was $ 1,290, almost double the average cost of 1990 and 2002 hospital costs increased by more than 50%. Professional services, which at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) includes data physician and clinical services, dental services and other professional services represents a further 31,3% of total health expenditures and health care, home care is further 5,9 %. All these services are in place in the institutions and conditions that are costly to maintain and, where costs are growing rapidly and account for more than 68% of total health expenditure in the U.S. in 2007.
The cost however, is only part of the problem with this centralized model of care. Hospitals, clinics, doctors offices and even homes for the elderly is known to spread disease. In accordance with the February 2003 article in the New England Journal of Medicine from 5% to 10% of all patients admitted to intensive care hospitals purchased one or more infections. CDC estimates there are 1.7million hospital infections each year resulting in about 99,000 deaths, various sources have estimated that these cases one terminal by more than $ 6billion in medical expenses each year. These economic costs pale in comparison with the pain, suffering and loss of life caused by these infections.
The centralized model also provides the setting, at best, impersonal and often brutal. The structure of the institutional form hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and nursing homes can increase the physical discomfort of patients through the raised levels of anxiety, disorientation, helplessness and even depression. In addition, the very nature of such institutions entails breaks at odd hours of staff and other patients, and constantly changing stock of medical services that will further strengthen the patient’s discomfort.
Treatment of patients at home is much cheaper and gives the familiar setting for the patient. In addition, typically the environment, more comfortable and reduces the risk of infection and increases the feeling of the patient, monitoring their treatment. The difficulty is that so far most of the technology cost and availability of the necessary reasons, a centralized model has been effective.
Telemedicine involves the use of telecommunications or through traditional telephone networks, cellular phone or the Internet to diagnose, treat and monitor patients over long distances. Early use was concentrated on telecardiology and teleradiology where ECG and X-Ray information is transmitted through the communication and monitored and evaluated in areas remote from the patient. Recently, new procedures now enable surgeons to perform certain procedures in remote locations, and many hospitals have implemented remote stations care that can monitor patients from many sites from one centralized location.
Telemedicine is also used in home health care settings for emergency alerts through the personal response system for emergencies and monitoring of patients vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose. Recent advances in telemedicine health care homes were in the field of drug control, which, given the costs of treating poor compliance is a tremendous opportunity to not only save money but also greatly improve health outcomes and save lives.
More than 50 million people in the U.S. for three or more prescriptions. Although many of these drugs are crucial to improving the health of the patient’s average level of compliance with their treatment regimen, only 50%. Poor medication adherence in accordance with the Center for Disease Control is a serious health problem has led to increased costs and poor health outcomes. The current low rate of medication adherence results in 10% of all hospital admissions (30% of all hospitalizations of older people), 22-40% of all skilled nursing recognition of stock, 125,000 deaths per year and from $ to $ 150billion 300billion in annual costs of waste.
And this problem will only get worse and more life expectancy and relatively low birth rates increase in the average age of the country in the coming years. The older we get, the more drugs we require, and as the number of prescriptions increases so too does the amount of non-compliance. As a result, the cost of the health system because of poor compliance increases significantly.
There are several ways to improve compliance, which were tested in the medical community. Compliance rates can be significantly improved through better education, monitoring patients at home, and improved management of drugs. Controls Drugs help by organizing dosages, providing a reminder of the need to take pills and send an alert caregivers when the doses are not accepted. Telemedicine devices for controlling drugs significantly improve compliance rates, using all three of these strategies.
One such product that provides all of the distribution function as-Pill (DAP) with HealthOneMed. DAP is a telemedicine product, which provides automatic issuance of tablets based medicines and supplements for certain doses, a reminder of when to take each dose and warnings, withdrawal and / or medical doses are not accepted. DAP also provides instructions, instructions (what the medicine for H) and warnings for each medication, you can do. This is the only home care management product on the market capable of all these functions and using the DAP would reduce medical costs, improve outcomes and save lives.
