Telehealth Is Technology to Watch

MELBOURNE, Fla.–Telehealth continues to move forward as an
avenue to improve patient care–and for HME providers to improve
sales, according to a long-time industry consultant.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity,” said Shelly Prial of Prial
Consulting, Melbourne, Fla., and director of government relations
for Graham-Field Health Products, Atlanta. “I think it’s very
important that providers, if they do nothing else, be cognizant of
the fact that a change is taking place,” said Prial, who
anticipates the market for telehealth equipment will increase
considerably in coming years.

Telehealth, which encompasses the delivery of health-related
services enabled by technology, includes a broad range of both
non-clinical and clinical services, such as medical diagnosis and
remote monitoring, health advice by telephone or Internet, or
exchange of information via videoconferencing.

Growth in the home telehealth equipment market is evidenced by
an increasing number of vendors for the technology and attendees at
ATA meetings, said Jonathan D. Linkous, executive director of the
American Telemedicine Association, Washington D.C., which was
founded in 1993.

“Even though we don’t have funding for home telehealth equipment
as an explicit line item for Medicare, there is still a lot of
growth in this area, as witnessed by the fact that people who are
interested in home care–home care providers and related
industry–are the fastest-growing part of our membership right
now,” Linkous said. ATA’s eleventh annual meeting is scheduled for
May 7-10 in San Diego.

Prial said he believes HME providers could take advantage of
anticipated growth in the sector by positioning themselves as
liasons among manufacturers of telemedicine technology, health care
providers and patients. Providers should “find out from the
physicians, home health agencies and the visiting nurse
associations that they work with that the interest is there and let
them know they are interested, too,” so that when the time comes,
“they very well may come to you” for business, he said.

Establishing distributorships with manufacturers would provide
profits not only on sales of the technology, but could also lead to
additional sales of supplies patients need, Prial said.

For more of Prial’s take on this developing discipline, check
the upcoming February issue of HomeCare magazine.

For more on the ATA, visit www.atmeda.org.