Page 2 Case Studies in Telehealth Adoption Scaling Telehealth Program sLessons from Early Adopters

2 The commonweALTh Fund

changes in the basic delivery of care, experience Each of the programs described in this series
indicates that their diffusion can lead to significant of case studies started as a pilot with the support and
improvements in the quality and cost of care and trans- promotion of a small group of advocates who believed
form the performance of care delivery on key outcome in the technology’s potential and capacity for offering
measures such as preventable readmissions. improved care for a targeted population. Evidence of
each program’s positive impact reinforced that belief
Using Remote Patient Monitoring to and strengthened the case for expansion throughout the
Improve Patients’ Outcomes and organizations. While each organization’s approach to
Experiences the design and implementation has varied, their collective
This brief offers a synthesis of findings from case stud- experience offers other organizations best practices for
ies of three early adopter organizations that use remote implementing telehealth-enabled care programs at scale.
patient monitoring (RPM). RPM—also referred to as
home telehealth, telehomecare, and telemonitoring— Early Lessons from Teleheath Adopters
can help resolve critical challenges in care coordina- The experiences of the three organizations offer con-
tion. RPM technologies can remotely collect, track, siderations for organizations planning to design, imple-
and transmit patient health data from a patient’s home ment, and scale telehealth programs for target popula-
(or other care setting) to a health care provider or case tions within their health systems:
manager in a different location. RPM can facilitate • Telehealth-enabled programs disrupt the status
interaction and communication between the patient and quo. Telehealth requires a different mind-set to
caregiver and can help to activate and engage patients achieve desired changes in practice and targeted
in the management of their own care. outcomes. An organization’s ability to promote a
Specific outcomes of RPM include reduc- culture of openness, preparedness, and adaptive-
ing hospitalizations and health care costs; improving ness to technology-led change will increase the
patient knowledge, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes; likelihood that the implementation will succeed.
and activating patients to better manage their own
health and care. However, despite the potential broad- • Program development involves a multidis-
based benefits, their use is still in the early stages of ciplinary, team-based approach. Telehealth
adoption for most providers. requires the integration of technical, clinical,
The three organizations studied in this series— and business processes into a standard program.
the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Partners Telehealth programs tend to specialize in providing
HealthCare, and Centura Health at Home—have suc- the technology expertise, wraparound support and
cessfully implemented telehealth programs for target training, and equipment installation, while home
populations within their systems. The telehealth- care and other care partners provide the clinical
enabled interventions deployed by these organizations expertise for successfully designing and imple-
rely at their core on the use of remote monitoring menting the technology for use in care.
devices in the homes of patients to capture and trans- • Technology implementation is a social process.
mit biometric data and communicate health status to Technology-enabled solutions in health care are
a remote care team who continuously review the data very much social in nature. Establishing leadership
and coordinate care accordingly. These programs can support and identifying program champions are the
help realize improved financial and clinical outcomes core foundations for a successful program, while
by facilitating behavior change and by staging timely, patient activation and engagement have been key
interactive care interventions to prevent unnecessary to successful program outcomes.
hospital admissions or emergency department visits.