MCMS Physician Fall 2017 - 6

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COVER STORY

Telemedicine:
Reshaping Healthcare

O

ne of the tenants of the Affordable Care Act was to provide
access to care for all Americans. To that end, telemedicine
is a piece of the healthcare transformation and the
government is slowly helping with telehealth initiatives.
Currently, states fall into one of twelve regional resource centers. Each
resource center is funded by a federal grant to promote the use and
expansion of telemedicine. Pennsylvania falls under the Mid-Atlantic
Telehealth Resource Center, along with Delaware, D.C., Kentucky,
Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
It is important to note that telemedicine is not a separate medical
specialty but rather a different means of healthcare delivery. Telemedicine
is defined as the use of medical information exchanged from one site to
another via electronic communications to improve a patient's clinical
health status. It is an effective delivery system for providing quality
care and produces better utilization of limited healthcare resources.
Under healthcare reform, we are expecting patients to be consumers
and as telemedicine promotes competition, we should see prices drop.
Additionally, the use of telemedicine has already revealed high patient
satisfaction and demonstrated that patients prefer telemedicine over
travel or wait times. Moreover, by implementing telemonitoring (the
use of devices to remotely monitor patients vital signs), patients are
empowered to be active participants in their own health care.

MCMS PHYSICIAN 6 FALL 2017
https://www.montmedsoc.com/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MCMS Physician Fall 2017
