For value-based care, virtual options aren’t always beneficial, study finds

A new telehealth study from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business shows that virtual care does not significantly reduce costs or reduce visits to the emergency room or specialist for weekly illnesses. circulatory, respiratory and infectious in the future.

WHY IT IMPORTANT

Indranil Bardhan, professor of information, risk and operations management at UTexas, and his co-authors, Sezgin Ayabakan of Temple University and Zhiqiang ‘Eric’ Zheng of UTexas in Dallas, examined the health from through process virtualization theory – replacing physical interactions with virtual ones.

Based on a study of patient visits across all hospital outpatient clinics in Maryland between 2012 and 2021, telehealth visits reduced total visits by 14%. outpatient visit within 30 days of telehealth and $239 in total cost savings per outpatient. patients, new research finds.

But for heart or lung diseases, for example, virtual visits don’t offer the same value.

“The effectiveness of telehealth is really a function of the type of disease it’s used to treat,” Bardhan said in Wednesday’s announcement of the study published in Information Systems Research.

In contrast, “patients with mental, skin, metabolic, and musculoskeletal health conditions experienced a significant 0.21 reduction in outpatient visits per quarter ($179 equivalent cost reduction) when they were telehealth, showing an alternative impact on traditional clinic visits,” the authors said in their summary report.

Bardhan said in the statement that the researchers hope their recommendations for developing telehealth programs allow for more efficient use of resources “by encouraging care professionals to healthcare focuses telehealth on treating the specific types of diseases and conditions for which it can work best.”

TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN

Happy Kids, a six-clinic pediatric clinic based in Phoenix, Arizona, has seen a significant loss in business during the COVID-19 pandemic and says it has increased the efficiency of its operations. VBC with telemedicine service.

“Before the pandemic, we had an average of 1,800 to 2,000 visits a week. After integrating telehealth technology, we are seeing nearly 2,600 patients a week, including about 600 visits. virtual,” Dr. Jose Francisco Carrazco, founder of Happy Kids, told Healthcare IT News in November.

For years, telehealth advocates have asserted that telehealth has solved access and revenue problems, and the pandemic has proven it. But it didn’t work out well for Windrose Health Network, a federally qualified medical center based in Greenwood, Indiana, near Indianapolis.

Scott Rollett, CEO of Windrose Health Network, told Healthcare IT News in 2021: “Sometimes during telemedicine, some things are very subtle – and some things are not so subtle – may be overlooked”.

“As a general rule, patients coming to FQHC are sicker and more medically complex than the average American, so when those are ignored, they can lead to some very poor health outcomes.” .”

ON PROFILE

“People believe that telehealth is going to be the next big thing, the future of healthcare,” says Bardhan. “But our research shows that its impact isn’t as simple as people think. It’s more nuanced.”