Return on Health: Moving Beyond Dollars and Cents in Realizing the Value of Virtual Care

Return on Health: Moving Beyond Dollars and Cents in Realizing the Value of Virtual Care

American Medical Association May 2021

• This report presents a framework for measuring the value of digitally enabled care that accounts for the various ways in which virtual care programs may increase the overall “return on health” by generating positive impact for patients, clinicians, payers and society going forward. (Based on US healthcare system.)

A systematic scoping review of change management practices used for telemedicine service implementations.

A systematic scoping review of change management practices used for telemedicine service implementations.
BMC Health Serv Res 20, 815 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05657-w  

• Areview of the evidence identified 16 change management practices relating to either strategic or operational aspects of telemedicine implementations. The authors suggest that the slow rate of adoption of telemedicine may be due to a piecemeal approach to the change process, and a lack of understanding of how to plan, manage and reinforce change when implementing telemedicine services.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): remote care through telehealth

Special Collection: Coronavirus (COVID-19): remote care through telehealth
Cochrane Library updated 10 August 2020

• This Special Collection includes Cochrane Reviews that address using telehealth to support clinical management of various conditions, including asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, reproductive health, and skin cancer. It includes reviews of using telehealth to provide carer and parent support as well as empowering patient self-management of their long-term conditions.

Telemedicine for care homes - scoping and implementation

Telemedicine for care homes - scoping and implementation 

Guides developed alongside a staged implementation of a Telemedicine Service Hub in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight STP footprint, which was fast tracked as a result of  Covid-19.

Telemedicine for care homes: a strategic scoping guide
Wessex AHSN August 2020

• This scoping guide goes through a process, and outlines the things to think about when developing a telemedicine service for care homes, allowing you to develop a service that works for you. It includes
• Guidance for scoping and planning
• Links to a range of resources to support and inform thinking
• Case studies from Hampshire Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust and West Hampshire CCG to show how this works in practice.

Telemedicine for care homes: a strategic implementation guide
Wessex AHSN August 2020
This guide is aimed at a strategic level, to help develop and implement telemedicine services

• by collating in one place all the resources and lessons learned from service development in the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight STP. 

Revisting Health Information Technology Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues and Evaluation: Telehealth/Telemedicine and COVID-19

Revisting Health Information Technology Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues and Evaluation: Telehealth/Telemedicine and COVID-19

International Journal of Medical Informatics 31 July 2020, 104239 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104239

• Highlights
• Quality of care, access, consent, and privacy have been the primary telemedicine ELSI concerns.
• The pandemic illuminated additional issues and informatics needs.
• All these issues also apply to health information technologies in general.
• The scope of issues needs expanding; clinicians and organizations need updated ELSI guidelines.
• Evaluation that includes ELSI is necessary for decisions about health information technology.

The Evidence Base for Telehealth: Reassurance in the Face of Rapid Expansion During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Evidence Base for Telehealth: Reassurance in the Face of Rapid Expansion During the COVID-19 Pandemic
AHRQ 14 May 2020

• This white paper commentary is intended to help contextualize findings from  two evidence reviews on telehealth to help decision makers easily understand the relevance to current decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Telehealth for Acute and Chronic Care Consultations
• Telehealth: Mapping the Evidence for Patient Outcomes From Systematic Reviews

Coronavirus (COVID-19): remote care through telehealth

Coronavirus (COVID-19): remote care through telehealth
Cochrane Special Collections 6 May 2020

• Telehealth refers to the provision of personalized health care over a distance. It embraces synchronous and asynchronous interactions including consulting by phone, instant messaging, video, text message, or web-based services. 
• This Special Collection includes Cochrane Reviews that address using telehealth to support clinical management of various conditions, including asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, reproductive health, and skin cancer. It includes reviews of using telehealth to provide carer and parent support as well as empowering patient self-management of their long-term condition.

Telemedicine: COVID-19 and Beyond

Telemedicine: COVID-19 and Beyond
IHI Virtual Learning 1 May 2020

• This Virtual Learning Hour explores what this means for the future of telemedicine once the pandemic subsides, and how the expanded use of telehealth is spreading critical COVID-19 knowledge and effective medical interventions to clinicians around the world.

A scoping review of pre-hospital technology to assist ambulance personnel with patient diagnosis or stratification during the emergency assessment of suspected stroke.

A scoping review of pre-hospital technology to assist ambulance personnel with patient diagnosis or stratification during the emergency assessment of suspected stroke.
BMC Emerg Med 20, 30 (26 April 2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12873-020-00323-0

• A systematic review of the literature for research examining technology with existing proof of concept for diagnosis or stratification of patients in the pre-hospital setting identified 19 studies of which 15 were evaluations of pre-hospital telemedicine. All of these involved transmission of stroke assessment data from the pre-hospital setting to the hospital. Diagnosis was generally comparable with hospital diagnosis and most telemedicine systems reduced time-to-treatment; however, it is unknown whether this time saving translated into more favourable clinical outcomes. Telemedicine systems were deemed acceptable by clinicians.

Abstract

COVID-19 transforms health care through telemedicine: evidence from the field

COVID-19 transforms health care through telemedicine: evidence from the field
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, ocaa072, 23 April 2020 doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa072

• Data on the feasibility and impact of video-enabled telemedicine use among patients and providers and its impact on urgent and non-urgent health care delivery from one large health system (NYU Langone Health) at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

Telehealth for global emergencies

Telehealth for global emergencies: Implications for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Journal of Telehealth and Telemedicine 20 March 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/1357633X20916567

• This article discusses what is required for telehealth to be mainstreamed and therefore be effective  as part of an emergency response as  needed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Abstract 

The long road to patient co-production in telehealth services

The long road to patient co-production in telehealth services
BMJ 2019;366:l4770 25 July 2019 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l4770

• A case study of the NHS Near Me service, which offers online consultations to remote communities in Scotland, and how patients were involved in its development.

Can a home WiFi router act as a medical sensing device? OPERA project

Can a home WiFi router act as a medical sensing device?
University of Bristol 9 May 2018

• New research that could transform the future of healthcare will investigate whether it is possible to reuse WiFi radio waves as a medical radar system. The research, led by the University of Bristol, is part of a new £1.5 million grant awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Toshiba and Decawave to the OPERA project, a consortium including the universities of Bristol and Oxford; University College London and Coventry University.
• The three-year project, starting in October 2018, will extend the current SPHERE (Sensor Platform for HEalthcare in a Residential Environment) project, which is developing sensors for use in the home to spot health and wellbeing problems, with both projects running until 2021.