E-Health

Through telemedicine, broadband has the potential to deliver huge cost savings to America’s health care system – over $300 billion annually.  While also delivering much needed specialty care to rural parts of the country.

• From a baseline of 2.2 million patients transported each year between emergency departments at a cost of $1.39 billion in transportation costs, hybrid technologies would avoid 850,000 transports with a cost savings of $537 million a year.
  “The Value of Provider-to-Provider Telehealth Technologies”, The Center for Information Technology Leadership, November 2007
• Current estimates put U.S. healthcare spending at approximately 15% of GDP, the world's highest.  Specifically, home eHealth and disease management services have been shown to incur cost savings and improve care in homebound and chronic disease patient groups and have been singled out as a valued service by patients.
  McClure, “E-Health and America’s Broadband Networks”, US Internet Industry Association, 8/14/ 2007
• A study of one remote monitoring effort showed a 40 percent cut in emergency room visits, a 63 percent reduction in hospital admissions and a 60 percent reduction in the number of hospitals
  C. Cruise, M. Lee, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, Volume 16, Issue 1, Pages 267-284 
• Remote broadband-based monitoring has the potential to cut hospital, drug and out-patients costs by 30 percent.
  Dibya Sarkar, “Broadband Could be Health Boon for Seniors”, Government Health IT, December 9 2005 
• According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 80 percent of American Internet users – or about 113 million American adults -- have turned to the Web for healthcare information.
• Diabetes patients monitored through telehealth visits have estimated hospital costs of $87,327 for patients monitored through telehome health, and $232,872 for patients that only receive traditional homecare by a nurse.
  Dansky, Palmer, Shea, Bowles, “Cost Analysis of Telehomecare” op.cit. 
• Health insurance plans processed 98 percent of claims within 30 days in 2006, up from 94 percent in 2002
  America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Center for Policy Research, “An Updated Survey of Health Care Claims Receiptand Processing Times, May 2006” 
• The average cost to process a “clean claim” received on paper is $1.58 versus only $0.85 for a comparable electronic claim
  America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Center for Policy Research, “An Updated Survey of Health Care Claims Receiptand Processing Times, May 2006” 
• Annual savings from health IT could average almost $81 billion over 15 years.
  FedericoGirosi, Robin Meili and Richard Scoville, Extrapolating Evidence of Health Information Technology Savings and Costs 
• Health IT could eliminate around 200,000 adverse drug events at a national savings of $1 billion annually.
  RAND Health, “Health Information Technology: Can HIT Lower Costs and Improve Quality?” 
• And a study by economist Robert Litan projected that broadband-based monitoring could cut medical costs for senior citizens by about 30 percent.
  Robert E. Litan, “Great Expectations: Potential Economic Benefits To The Nation From Accelerated Broadband Deployment To Older  Americans And Americans With Disabilities,” New Millennium Research Council, December 2005