Telehealth palliative care helps patients receive high-quality care at home. It reduces the need for stressful and costly visits to doctors and hospitals. This article explores the role of telehealth in palliative care and how it benefits patients, family caregivers, and medical staff.
Telehealth and Palliative Care
12 million adults and 400,000 children in the U.S. have a severe illness. Palliative care has been shown to improve quality of life and reduce caregiver burden. It also reduces avoidable emergency department, hospital, and ICU utilization. However, 90% of hospitals with palliative care programs are in urban communities. Moreover, only 17% of rural hospitals with fifty or more beds report palliative care programs. In contrast, remote patient monitoring helps reduce travel burdens and provides access to after-hours services.
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 independent of physical location. For example, a recent study revealed that telehealth for palliative care facilitated greater efficiency, comfort, and independence for patients.
Cellular and Bluetooth medical monitoring devices collect patient vital sign data and automatically transfer the data to healthcare provider platforms. That allows palliative care teams to evaluate their patient’s health daily and monitor trends that may improve treatment plans. In addition, biometric data can be shared with specialist providers, creating a streamlined, whole-care approach.
Finally, telehealth for palliative care allows providers across multiple locations to meet with patients virtually to discuss complex and personal decisions. An Australian study concluded that telehealth has high utility in palliative care practice. It was also suggested that patients and physicians favor a hybrid model of care with both face-to-face and telehealth consultations.
Palliative Care and Remote Patient Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring is helpful in conditions requiring close monitoring, clinical assessment, early intervention, and prevention. In addition, telehealth and palliative care appointments can support patients’ expectations and need for maintaining their care at home. A significant benefit of remote patient monitoring for palliative care includes increased quality of life by improving independence and self-management.
With RPM, patients have increased choices, such as improved access to community palliative care services for those wishing to die at home. RPM is a cost-effective solution for palliative care patients with advanced illnesses such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and more.
Family caregivers often share in the management of palliative care. Telehealth platforms engage family caregivers in the care plan process, including hybrid or virtual visits. In addition, mobile apps enable family caregivers to monitor patient vital signs, medication and treatment plan adherence, and palliative or end-life educational resources.
Palliative Care Teams
Palliative care enables patients to focus on their quality of life and family. Telehealth palliative care programs also reduce administrative and technical burdens on healthcare providers. For example, those palliative care facilities that added remote patient monitoring to care models during the COVID-19 pandemic succeeded in creating 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 pipeline to meet the needs of patients with severe illnesses and their families needs to be improved. Remote patient monitoring 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, reducing duplicate documentation. In addition, RPM leverages a team-based care model that promotes provider flexibility.
The Future of 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. First, telehealth reimbursement flexibilities were temporary during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). Payment flexibilities ended May 11, 2023.
Staffing is still the biggest challenge in 2023; however, more than half of hospice and palliative care professionals reported improving conditions. In addition, 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.
