Two UNTHSC public health faculty publish research on telehealth’s impact on home health patients
Hsueh-Fen Chen, PhD, assistant professor, Health Management and Policy, for the School of Public Health at the UNT Health Science Center (UNTHSC), Fort Worth, Texas, is the lead author of a new research article, titled “Telehealth and Hospitalizations for Medicare Home Healthcare Patients,” published in the June 2011 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care.
Co-authors on this manuscript are José A. Pagán, PhD, chair of the UNTHSC Department of Health Management and Policy, and M. Christine Kalish, MBA, CMPE, the Brittain-Kalish Group.
Based on a study of 5,873 Medicare beneficiaries receiving home healthcare services through a network of community-based home health agencies operating in Texas and Louisiana, the study concluded that the 30-day hospitalization rate for home healthcare patients could be reduced from 17.1% to 10.3% through the use of an integrated, clinician-focused telehealth monitoring system. This may lead to substantial cost savings given that, for example, it costs approximately $7,200 to treat a readmitted Medicare patient.
The study notes that, “For both home health agencies and Medicare administrators, the problem of how to reduce hospitalization rates to improve quality of care for home healthcare patients continues to be a significant challenge,” with telehealth (the use of telecommunications and information technology to assess, diagnose, consult, monitor and provide information and interventions to patients across distance) being a promising and cost-effective solution to the issue.
José A. Pagán, PhD, chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy at the UNT Health Science Center’s (UNTHSC) School of Public Health, Fort Worth, Texas, is lead author on an article, “An Integrated, Clinician-focused Telehealth Monitoring System to Reduce Hospitalization Rates for Home Health Care patients with Diabetes,” to be published in the July 2011 issue of the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health.
Co-authors are Hsueh-Fen Chen, PhD, UNTHSC assistant professor of Health Management and Policy, and M. Christine Kalish, MBA, CMPE, from the Brittain-Kalish Group.
According to the study, telehealth monitoring systems can lead to substantially lowered hospitalization rates during the first 30 days of home health care, thereby reducing the high costs of hospitalizations related to diabetes. The term telehealth refers to the use of telecommunications and information technology to assess, diagnose, consult, monitor and provide information and interventions to patients across distance.
The study focused on 2009 data related to 699 Medicare beneficiaries receiving home health services in Texas and Louisiana; as available and appropriate, some were involved in telehealth-delivered programs.
Of those studied, the hospitalization rate for non-telehealth patients during the first 30 days of home health care was 19 percent, with the rate for telehealth patients being 12 percentage-points lower at 7 percent.