Telehealth for palliative care allows individuals living with serious illnesses to receive specialized medical care at home. Virtual visits reduce the need for travel and costly visits to doctors and hospitals. This service is helpful for patients living in rural areas or those who prefer to be at home.
This article explores the role of telehealth in palliative care and how it benefits patients, family caregivers, and medical staff.
Telehealth and Palliative Care
About 90 million American adults are living with severe illnesses. Research shows that palliative care can improve quality of life and reduce caregiver burden. It also reduces avoidable emergency department, hospital, and ICU use. However, 90% of hospitals with palliative care programs are in urban communities. Moreover, only 17% of rural hospitals with 50 or more beds even have a palliative care program.
Measuring patient outcomes is critical to developing high-quality, patient-centered care and services. Telehealth in palliative care during COVID-19 helped maintain continuity of care for patients regardless of their location. One study showed that telehealth for palliative care during the pandemic created greater patient efficiency, comfort, and independence.
An Australian study concluded that telehealth has high utility in palliative care practice. With palliative care patients and physicians often have to discuss complex and personal decisions. The research reported that patients and physicians favor a hybrid model of care with both face-to-face and telehealth consultations.
Palliative Care and Remote Patient Monitoring
Telehealth palliative care programs may use remote patient monitoring (RPM) to monitor patient vital signs. Like telehealth RPM reduces travel burdens. About 90 percent of hospice care is paid for through the Medicare hospice benefit. However, hospice patients must meet Medicare’s eligibility requirements, while palliative care patients do not have to meet the same requirements.
RPM is helpful in conditions requiring close monitoring, clinical assessment, early intervention, and prevention. Cellular and Bluetooth medical monitoring devices collect patient vital sign data and automatically transfer the data to the patient’s provider. Palliative care teams cab evaluate a patient’s health data for trends that may impact treatment plans. In addition, this data can be shared with specialist providers for a streamlined, whole-care approach.
- Benefits of remote patient monitoring for palliative care include:
- Increased quality of life by improving independence and self-management.
- More choice, such as improved access to community palliative care services.
- A cost-effective solution for those with advanced illnesses such as cancer, COPD, dementia, or Parkinson’s disease.
- Engages family caregivers in the care plan process.
- Enables caregivers to monitor patient vital signs, medication and treatment plan adherence, and provides educational resources.
Care Teams
Palliative care enables patients to focus on quality of life and family. Telehealth palliative care programs also reduce administrative and technical burdens on palliative care teams. Palliative care facilities that added RPM to care models during the COVID-19 pandemic developed efficiencies in care plans.
Remote patient monitoring in telehealth and palliative care provides:
- Quick response to patient and caregiver needs.
- Efficient workflow that reduces burdens on staff.
- Reduced workload helps with medical staff shortage.
- Increased revenue.
With medical staff shortages, the ability to meet the needs of patients with severe illnesses and their families is a challenge. RPM helps reduce the burden of unnecessary in-person visits because RPM allows clinicians to provide care virtually. Palliative care providers can prioritize care delivery with RPM tools that integrate with the provider’s EMR. In addition, RPM leverages a team-based care model that promotes provider flexibility.
Understanding Telehealth and Palliative Care
Despite the progress of telehealth and palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic, gaps remain for people with serious illnesses who do not have reliable access to palliative care. Overcoming gaps to achieve access for all comes with many challenges. Staffing is perhaps the biggest challenge. Palliative care providers are expected to make significant investments in technology, according to Palliative Care News Outlook Survey and Report, based on a survey of 330 palliative care professionals.
Whether your healthcare partners are interested in adopting remote patient monitoring to increase patient engagement, create a more efficient workflow, or increase revenue, Tenovi can help you find the best remote patient monitoring device solution. Choose from a growing list of Tenovi and partner FDA-cleared RPM devices. Book a free demo today.
