What will the health workforce of the future look like with the world of virtual house calls already here?
The telehealth movement hit world headlines in 2011 when US entrepreneur Ron Gutman created HealthTap, the world’s first global health practice providing 24/7 access to GPs via video, text, or voice. This virtual doctor service has provided more than 4.8 billion answers to users in 174 countries.
Online GP services are available in Australia but of 140 million GP visits a year in Australia, only about 20,000 are virtual.
UNSW Professor Branko Celler is keen to point out that telehealth is not just about video-conferencing technology, with home telemonitoring, improvements to wearable devices and portable diagnostic technologies promising to improve the quality and speed of health care delivery. The advancement of technologies is improving how people manage chronic conditions. Robot technology is already being used to perform certain surgeries.
Prof Celler led Australia’s first large-scale trial of telehealth that showed it could save up to $3 billion a year to the nation’s health care system.
The $5 million telehealth pilot program saw chronic disease patients self-managing their conditions at home with a telehealth monitoring device.
The CSIRO-led trial showed savings of almost $20,000 per year to the health care system made through falls in the number and cost of GP visits, specialist visits and procedures carried out and reduced admissions to hospital.
Prof Celler, who is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of NSW, said there are around 1.5m Australians aged over 65, who have two or more complex chronic conditions.
“If we can avoid unnecessary hospitalisation we can substantially improve health care outcomes for the patients and unnecessary expenditure for the healthcare system,” he said.
But Prof Celler pointed out that chronic disease did not just affect the elderly, it was hitting all levels of society.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Australia’s Health 2016 report, half of Australians (more than 11 million) have at least one chronic disease and one quarter have two or more.
Patients on the telehealth trial reported improvements in anxiety, depression and quality of life, with many finding that home monitoring gave them a better understanding of their chronic conditions.
Most importantly at home telemonitoring, reduced expenditure on medical services and reduced the rate of unscheduled admissions to hospital.
Prof Celler, who is founder and Research Director CEO of Telemedcare, the company behind the device used in the trial, said the Home Monitoring of Chronic Disease for Aged Care report showed that rather than complicated care co-ordination or integrated care projects, in-home telemonitoring was a simple and effective model that could save the health system billions every year.
“At home telemonitoring is actually very simple. You have a competent well-trained clinician, who has the authority to co-ordinate the care, in charge of reviewing the questionnaire and vital signs data from a patient and you can get the sorts of results shown in our report,” he said.
FAST FACTS
- Australians are living longer than ever but with higher rates of chronic disease, the latest national report card shows.
- According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Australia’s Health 2016 report, chronic diseases are becoming more common, due to population growth and ageing.
- Half of Australians (more than 11 million) have at least one chronic disease.
- Chronic disease is the leading cause of illness, disability and death in Australia
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Quelle/Source: The Daily Telegraph, 29.11.2016
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