Employee Telehealth
Employee Telehealth
Telehealth services can be delivered in the workplace for access to primary care physicians and/or specialists. This can improve employee productivity by minimizing employees’ non-productive time spent traveling to and from their physician or in waiting rooms. Conveniently located health services may also lead to earlier intervention by specialists and concomitant cost savings. Disease management services can also be improved via telehealth and remote (home or ambulatory) tele-monitoring technologies to measure vitals and other physiologic data (BP, weight, blood glucose, etc.) to monitor and manager employees with chronic diseases (COPD, CHF, Diabetes, hypertension, etc.). Several studies have demonstrated significant reductions is hospitalizations, ED visits in tele-monitored vs. usual care cohorts as tighter control via monitoring leads to better clinical outcomes & associated reduction in meds, procedures, other related costs. Similarly, wellness programs can be more efficiently managed using integrated suites of technologies for physiologic monitoring, exercise records, or group or individual coaching.
One example of telehealth in the workplace is UM TeleHealth’s contract with Royal Caribbean International for teledermatology consultation services for its employees at sea, which started August 1, 2010. The teledermatology service involves a ship’s physician or nurse taking digital photographs of areas of concern on the patient’s skin. These images are combined with medical history and other relevant information that are entered into a special web-based software system, MedWeb, that uploads the case to a secure server at UM. A consulting dermatologist reviews the case and makes his or her recommendation for a course of care to be implemented by the ship’s physician.
UM is also in the early stages of piloting a telehealth services for its employees and family beneficiaries. More to come soon…