As the US continues to undergo major demographic shifts, notably a rapidly aging population, the fundamental shift towards value-based care is becoming one of the most important changes in health care. With shortages of health care providers becoming more prevalent, alternative delivery models must be explored so that the remaining providers can be best utilized. In this landscape, telehealth will come to play a central role. Although long mooted as an alternative, uptake of the technology has remained slow, hindered by several factors. The most commonly acknowledged is reimbursement rates, often owed to inconsistent measurement and mixed results over its efficacy. Academic reviews of telehealth have produced varied results. However, it has been proved to be effective when tackling chronic condition management, remote patient monitoring, and behavioral health. Attempts to bring clarity to telehealth services have been troubled by distinctions in the criteria for assessing its effectiveness, lessening the ability to draw firm conclusions from the research. The most prevalent knowledge gaps are centered around the diverse and limited data regarding costs and utilization, which in turn have come to impact reimbursement rates. To overcome this, there should be a move to establish a standard assessment protocol for telehealth services. To start with, evaluations should focus on the overall impact of a program, rather than the delivery model or service itself. A logic model compiled by RN would be suitable, as all processes (i.e., inputs, activities, outputs) are strictly means to the end goal. Use of this model would eliminate the focus on delivery and instead, would narrow research towards the desired impacts and outcomes of the services. This shift should especially be pursued at a time when health care is shifting from volume to value and outcome-based payments. With this in place it will be possible to assess whether telehealth is improving health care outcomes.
As the US continues to undergo major demographic shifts, notably a rapidly aging population, the fundamental shift towards value-based care is becoming one of the most important changes in health care. With shortages of health care providers becoming more prevalent, alternative delivery models must be explored so that the remaining providers can be best utilized. In this landscape, telehealth will come to play a central role. Although long mooted as an alternative, uptake of the technology has remained slow, hindered by several factors. The most commonly acknowledged is reimbursement rates, often owed to inconsistent measurement and mixed results over its efficacy. Academic reviews of telehealth have produced varied results. However, it has been proved to be effective when tackling chronic condition management, remote patient monitoring, and behavioral health. Attempts to bring clarity to telehealth services have been troubled by distinctions in the criteria for assessing its effectiveness, lessening the ability to draw firm conclusions from the research. The most prevalent knowledge gaps are centered around the diverse and limited data regarding costs and utilization, which in turn have come to impact reimbursement rates. To overcome this, there should be a move to establish a standard assessment protocol for telehealth services. To start with, evaluations should focus on the overall impact of a program, rather than the delivery model or service itself. A logic model compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be suitable, as all processes (i.e., inputs, activities, outputs) are strictly means to the end goal. Use of this model would eliminate the focus on delivery and instead, would narrow research towards the desired impacts and outcomes of the services. This shift should especially be pursued at a time when health care is shifting from volume to value and outcome-based payments. With this in place it will be possible to assess whether telehealth is improving health care outcomes.