Report: 'The Connected Patient'

Donna Cusano

Holiday weeks like this give us time for a bit of catchup (not ketchup), and over at the California HealthCare Foundation’s website (via their iHealthBeat e-letter), Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s excellent February report, ‘The Connected Patient’, is a must-read. It is an overview of remote health monitoring (a/k/a telehealth and telemedicine) for post-discharge/post-acute care, rehabilitation, chronic disease management and aging in place–highlighting the to-date questions on its efficacy (lack of long-term, large population studies), shaky ROI and of course, the reimbursement problem. The Telehealth-as-a-Service (TaaS) model she outlines at the end might solve the patchwork that is telehealth today, even with those who claim to be ‘integrators’. 26 pages (PDF)