Can Telemedicine Work in the Private Sector?
A lot of insurers are trying, with technology that aims to keep congestive heart failure patients out of the hospital:
WellPoint Inc.’s Anthem unit in California is piloting a wireless scale and blood-pressure cuff that communicates in real time with nurses on alert for fluctuations that can signal heart failure, or when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the body’s organs. Humana Inc. in January will launch a program to track heart patients’ vital signs wirelessly and link them up via video to chat with nurses if appropriate.
And Aetna Inc. is running a clinical trial with Intel Corp. to assess how remote monitoring of vital signs can cut down on unnecessary hospitalization for heart patients.
I’ve got a little experience here. You need a lot more than an error-prone blood pressure cuff and weight monitoring to head off fatal heart attacks. More like stress tests with EKG and blood flow measurement through ultrasound and radiation cameras.
I’m skeptical, but let’s wait and see. That’s what innovation, competition and free markets are all about.
Since Wellpoint is a public company, they are in a position to decide under what conditions telemedicine and remote monitoring are of value. The industry needs these types of experiments absent the political baggage, the CMS bureaucracy and public program advocate hype.