Page 4 Shaping Your Telehealth Strategy 2014 Ernst & Young LLP

Surveying the telehealth landscape

Health care organizations are incorporating telehealth technologies to manage costs, broaden access and improve patient
care. Here are a few examples of how the technology is being used today:
• WellPoint offers employer and individual plans remote • In Mississippi, the Diabetes Telehealth Network has
consultations with physicians using laptop webcams and launched an 18-month remote care management
video-enabled smartphones and tablets. Its LiveHealth program, enabling people with diabetes to have more
Online program is included in employer plans in California consistent and timely access to clinicians via telehealth
and Ohio and will be expanded to commercial plans by technology in their homes.
late 2014. • The University of California, Berkeley School of Optometry
• UnitedHealth offers NowClinic telehealth consultations in uses telehealth technology to perform retinal scan
22 states. evaluations for thousands of low-income diabetic patients
• Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Online Care Anywhere is currently in a rural part of California.
available to residents in 30 states. • A growing number of hospitals are using telehealth
• Humana has launched a year-long pilot program to systems for local and off-site staff to continually monitor
measure the effects of its “Healthsense eNeighbor” ICU patients’ vital signs. System users report lower ICU
in-home monitoring technologies on improving health staffi ng requirements, along with reduced length of stay
outcomes and reducing readmissions. and risk of mortality among ICU patients.
• A growing number of large businesses, such as Home • “Virtual Tumor Boards” — groups of cancer specialists — are
Depot, Booz & Co. and Westinghouse Electric, are offering using telehealth technology for virtual meetings to review
more remote health care consultations in their employee cancer patient treatment options.
benefi t packages. • Through telestroke programs around the country — for
• Beth Israel Medical Center in New York offers “Teledoc,” example, at Mayo Clinic, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and
24/7 access to physicians by phone or video consultation. University of Virginia Health System — experts use
• Mercy Health Systems in Missouri is building a $90 videoconferencing technology to consult with emergency
department staff at community hospitals in diagnosing
million Virtual Care Center, the fi rst facility of its kind in patients with suspected strokes and conferring on best
the nation. Staffed by hundreds of health care providers, treatment options.
the center will expand Mercy’s telehealth capabilities to
outlying care centers across a four-state region. • A number of health care providers are consulting with
patients through Google’s recently launched Helpouts, a
video-chat platform that supports HIPAA compliance.