Telemedicine Applications
AMD Global Telemedicine is helping our customers around the world embrace telemedicine technology as a solution to expand health care services. There are no limits to the applications that telemedicine and telehealth can be leveraged for, but some of the most common telemedicine applications are outlined below.
Hospitals & Healthcare Systems
Virtual visits allow patients and providers to stay engaged outside the healthcare facility which means they will stay within your facility for additional in-patient services. For the average hospital, 65% – 80% of revenue comes from in-patient and ancillary services.
Rural Community Health Centers
Rural healthcare facilities are often unable to attract, afford, or retain specialty providers. Telemedicine technology delivers immediate access to a remote specialist without the need for the patient to travel or wait for an appointment and increases the service offerings for rural patients.
Long Term Care Facilities
Telemedicine is a key driver to success for long term care facilities by providing access to acute care 24/7, treating patients in place in order to curb unnecessary hospitalizations, and significantly reducing hospital readmission rates.
Urgent Care Centers
Telemedicine and telehealth allow urgent care facilities to extend their services to additional specialties and share their own provider resources across multiple facilities and sites.
Correctional Facilities
One of the greatest risks and highest costs of correctional healthcare is inmate transport. Telemedicine allows prison facilities to deliver high-quality care without the cost and dangers of inmate transportation or the need for a physician specialist to enter the facility.
School-Based Health Centers
Health centers across the nation are using telemedicine as a necessary tool to deliver appropriate care to children where they frequent most – school. Telemedicine helps manage chronic conditions for children such as asthma, diabetes, and obesity and decreases the use of urgent and emergency care.
Developing Countries
Telemedicine allows rapid deployment of healthcare to a developing population through relatively low-cost clinics. Rather than build and staff large numbers of sophisticated facilities, telemedicine allows basic clinics to consult and share the expertise of a medical specialist who is located anywhere in the world.
How Can We Help?
Hospitals & Healthcare Systems
One of the most widely-used telemedicine applications is in hospitals and healthcare systems because it can significantly benefit their bottom line and be applied enterprise-wide throughout multiple specialties.
In fact, more than half of U.S. hospitals connect with patients and consulting practitioners through the use of video and other technology.
Virtual visits allow patients and providers to stay engaged outside the healthcare facility for post-surgery follow up appointments or chronic disease management, etc. And keeping patients engaged means they will stay within your facility for additional in-patient services. For the average hospital, 65% – 80% of revenue comes from in-patient and ancillary services.
Rural Community Health Centers
One of the greatest challenges in rural health is assuring that medical expertise is available when and where it is needed. Since rural healthcare facilities are often unable to attract, afford or retain specialty providers they need to have immediate access to a specialist who can treat the patient on the spot.
A combination of telemedicine technology platforms paired with specialty medical devices allow a remote physician to “see” the patient as if they were actually in the exam room with the patient. The specialist can examine the patient, review vital signs and patient history, provide assessment, diagnosis, and a treatment plan. This minimizes or eliminates the need to travel for either the patient or the specialist.
Long Term Care Facilities
Telemedicine is a key driver to success for long term care facilities by providing access to acute care 24/7, and at the same time addresses the challenging readmissions rates (typically around 22%). These unnecessary readmissions cost millions of dollars a year in penalties and lost revenue while putting patients at risk. Statistically, 30-day hospital re-admissions for elderly patients markedly increases morbidity and development of secondary complications.
Telemedicine applications in long term care facilities help manage acute changes on demand and curb unnecessary hospitalizations by treating these patients in place. Long term-care patients with acute changes can be treated in place over 90% of the time through the use of telehealth. Adapting care models to include both in-person and easily accessible telemedicine consultations, especially in urgent situations is transforming care in skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes.
Urgent Care Centers
Patients are finding alternative options to avoid the over-crowded emergency rooms. Urgent Care Centers have focused on bringing in patients that want/need conveniences. Telemedicine and telehealth allow urgent care facilities to extend their services to additional specialties and share their own provider resources across multiple facilities and sites.
Urgent care centers have adopted telehealth platforms to help manage patient care through virtual visits. Urgent care doctors can diagnose minor illnesses, injuries and answer medical questions before recommending how the patient should move forward with their care plan. Aided by audio and video, physicians can assess a patient’s condition from a distance, schedule an appointment with a specialist or recommend the patient receive immediate care at an emergency department.
Correctional Facilities
Telemedicine allows prison facilities to deliver high-quality care without the cost and dangers of inmate transportation or the need for a physician specialist to enter the facility. Correctional facilities have been able to achieve improved access to care while substantially reducing tax payer’s dollars spent on inmate healthcare.
Telemedicine has proven effective for primary care, disease prevention, dental, and OBGYN healthcare needs in this application. The US federal prison system and corrections facilities in many states, as well as prisons outside the US, have implemented telemedicine as a means to deliver routine healthcare.
School-Based Health Centers
School-based telemedicine programs are making a significant impact on keeping our children healthier and reducing the number of absences due to illness. Telemedicine helps manage chronic conditions for school-aged children such as asthma, diabetes, and obesity and decreases the use of urgent and emergency care.
The school nurse is an isolated provider yet she has to respond to a variety of needs, telemedicine allows a school nurse to remotely access expert medical opinion for those students that need it. This means a student can be treated without having to miss school for a doctor’s appointment and it also saves the school from losing attendance-based state funding.
Developing Countries
Telemedicine allows rapid deployment of healthcare to a developing population through relatively low-cost clinics. Rather than build and staff large numbers of sophisticated facilities, telemedicine allows basic clinics to consult and share the expertise of a medical specialist who is located anywhere in the world.
This substantially changes the healthcare delivery strategy of a developing country and accelerates deployment and costs a fraction of a traditional “bricks and mortar” strategy.