Canada Health Infoway launched the study to gauge the use of telehealth technology and the benefits achieved to date. The study included data from sources including the 2010 Pan-Canadian Telehealth Survey and data from Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) on telehealth utilization and descriptions of services. It was conducted by Praxia Information Intelligence and Gartner.
For the purposes of the study, telehealth was defined as the delivery of services by healthcare organizations using health information and communications technology when the clinician and patient are not in the same location.
For the purposes of the study, telehealth was defined as the delivery of services by healthcare organizations using health information and communications technology when the clinician and patient are not in the same location.
Analysis of reported data showed that there were nearly 260,000 instances of telehealth use (or telehealth events) in Canada in 2010. The study also found that telehealth use in Canada has grown at a rate of more than 35 percent annually in the past five years.
In 2010, “jurisdictions reported 187,385 clinical events, 44,600 educational events and 27,538 administrative events, as well as nearly 2,500 patients receiving telehomecare,” the report stated. Ontario has the largest telehealth program, with more than one-half of the country's telehealth use occurring there.
As of the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year, 5,710 telehealth systems were installed in at least 1,175 communities across Canada, the report noted. Many of these systems serviced the 21 percent of the Canadian population who live in rural or remote areas. The territories, including Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon, demonstrate the highest per-capita telehealth system penetration, “illustrating how important telehealth is in these vast, predominantly rural and northern areas,” the study stated.
Approximately 73 percent of measured telehealth clinical sessions were generated by three clinical service areas: mental health (54 percent), internal medicine (15 percent) and oncology (13 percent).
The extent of use varies from small pilot projects to well-established clinical services. The distribution of services also varies among provinces/territories, the report stated. For example, telehealth events saved Canadians living in rural or remote communities an estimated 47 million kilometers of travel in 2010.
“This not only means travel distance saved, but also $70 million in personal travel costs, 5.6 million liters of gasoline and almost 13 million kilograms of CO2 emissions avoided—the equivalent of [keeping] 2,760 cars off the road.” Telehealth systems therefore resulted in cost avoidance of approximately $55 million for the national health system last year. By reducing the need for patients to travel for care, telehealth also reduced utilization of medical travel subsidies or grants: "Savings in provincial and federally subsidized travel through current telehealth programs were estimated to be nearly $34 million in 2010," the report stated.
In addition, telehomecare programs in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and British Columbia saved hospitals and health regions an estimated $915,000 in emergency department visit costs and $20 million in inpatient costs during the study period. "In Alberta, it was reported that stroke acute care by telehealth resulted in a 38 percent decrease in transfers to tertiary sites, which led to net savings of approximately $390,000," the study indicated.
“With these critical success factors in mind, tele-enabled care processes can become a mainstream way of delivering services to all patients and their families,” the report concluded. “They can be used not only to increase access for those who are at great distances from specialized healthcare facilities and care providers, but also to provide efficient care for people in more dense urban and suburban settings.”
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Quelle/Source: CMIO, 07.06.2011
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