Since the implementation of the Medicare Prospective Payment System in 1999, home health agencies have been looking for more cost-effective ways to provide care. Telehomecare is a more effective way to deliver home care under certain circumstances. Since it is a rapidly developing field, it's difficult to define all telehomecare applications. It usually involves two-way electronic communication between the patient and the formal caregiver such as a nurse or doctor.
Communication can occur with two-way radio, telephone or as is usually the case, two-way interactive video using a computer and phone lines or satellite downlink. This electronic face-to-face home visit also requires some means for the care provider--who might be hundreds of miles away-- to access patient vital signs and receive patient-initiated medical tests. The patient or her in-home informal caregiver has been trained to use electronic monitoring or test equipment that sends the relevant video snapshots or numeric data via phone line, or radio wave to the formal caregiver.
Telehomecare is not only more cost-effective but also in many cases provides a higher quality of care. Here are some of the ways telehomecare is proving to be beneficial:
educing number of visits to the emergency rooms
reducing unnecessary visits to physician's offices
avoiding unnecessary costly visits by health providers
providing education of the patient in early symptom management
monitoring vital signs on a 24-hour basis, therefore providing a potential for early intervention and/or prevention of repeat hospitalization
Below are companies offering telehomecare services and equipment.
In-Touch Companionship Monitoring
Telehealth Resource Group Inc.
Although electronic monitoring of patients is also a function of telehomecare, it is also becoming a primary source of supplemental home care service not always involving the use of a home health agency. This section focuses more on the use of devices that warn of problems with homebound people who are often without caregivers for certain periods of the day. This may include 24-hour vital sign monitoring, video surveillance, emergency signaling systems or GPS locator devices for wandering care recipients.
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