T elehealth increasingly is vital t

T elehealth increasingly is vital to our health care delivery system,enabling health care providers to connect with patients and consulting practitioners across vast distances. Hospitals are embracing the use of telehealth technologies because they offer benefits such as virtual consultations with distant specialists, the ability to perform high-tech monitoring without requiring patients to leave their homes, and less expensive and more convenient care options for patients. Telehealth has moved into the mainstream. In 2013, 52 percent of hospitals utilized telehealth, and another 10 percent were beginning the process of implementing telehealth services. Consumer interest, acceptance and confidence in telehealth are growing as well. Recent studies on the use of telehealth services have shown that:
• 74 percent of U.S. consumers would
use telehealth services;
• 76 percent of patients prioritize access
to care over the need for human interactions
with their health care providers; 2
• 70 percent of patients are comfortable communicating with their health care providers via text, e-mail or video, in lieu of seeing them in person; and
• 30 percent of patients already use computers or mobile devices to check for medical or diagnostic information. Telehealth has many guises, from remote monitoring programs used by hospitals for post-discharge monitoring to reduce readmissions, to hospital emergency departments using remote video consultations to enable patients to receive telepsychiatric screening. Increased use of telehealth reflects a changing health care landscape with a move toward integrated delivery and new payment models. Also spurred by consumer demand, telehealth is viewed increasingly as an efficient and cost-effective care delivery vehicle. This two-part American Hospital Association TrendWatch series will examine first the promise of telehealth,
focusing on how telehealth is being used by hospitals and the benefits for patients and providers. The second part of the series will analyze the significant legal and regulatory challenges posed by the use of telehealth technologies, including:
• licensure,
• scope of practice,
• liability,
• privacy and security, and
• fraud and abuse considerations.

Medicare, state Medicaid programs and technology advocates have used two terms, sometimes interchangeably, to describe the use of technology to provide health care services – telemedicine and telehealth. Each program or definition identifies the scope of services, the types of technologies and the locations where patients can receive telehealth services. Generally, “telemedicine” has been used