A new study published by University of California-Davis researchers shows that
In a competitive health care region with more than one children’s hospital, deploying pediatric telemedicine services to referring hospitals resulted in an increased market share and an increased number of transfers, hospital revenue and professional billing revenue
Study Findings
Here’s a summary of the study findings from iHealthBeat.org:
Researchers from University of California-Davis Children’s Hospital examined billing information from July 2003 to December 2010 for patients transferred from 16 hospitals that used telemedicine to nearby children’s facilities (Dharmar et al., Telemedicine and e-Health, 7/9).
The study found that the average number of patients transferred annually by the 16 hospitals nearly doubled from 143 transfers before the deployment of telemedicine to 285 transfers after the hospitals began using telemedicine.
In addition, the researchers found that the average annual revenue for the facilities increased from $2.4 million before the deployment of telemedicine services to $4 million after the launch of telemedicine services (FierceHealthIT, 7/15).
Meanwhile, the average professional billing revenue increased from $313,977 to $688,443 annually after the deployment of telehealth services (Telemedicine and e-Health, 7/9).
