Telehealth’s Maine Supporters

EMHS has been collecting data on ED utilization for 2-3 years in an effort to improve grant writing, which funds the deployment of additional telehealth devices. Naturally, the cost savings component of this research is critical to supporting this movement.

For the 57 patients who used telehealth and had congestive heart failure, the savings amounted to $490,049, according to research from EMHS. Total savings for 162 patients in one 60-day telehealth deployment period over readmissions within the same time period amounted to $2 million, McPherson says. Furthermore, patients usually only need the 60 days to sustain their behavior changes, she says. Thus, a further investment is not needed.

The project has gotten support, McPherson says, from the Bangor Beacon Community, one of 17 sites nationwide dedicated to advancing EHR adoption and health information exchange across the country. Furthermore, as one of 32 Pioneer accountable care organizations, EMHS has plans to use telehealth as part of a larger initiative to expand home and community-based services in partnership with the organization’s patient-centered medical home (PCMH). 

“In the Beacon project, we have a premise where we’re supporting patients with chronic disease who are not homebound, but who can still benefit from this technology in the home. I’ll be expanding that model under the ACO,” McPherson says. “These are patients with chronic diseases who are not homebound, and thus not eligible to receive homecare telehealth under Medicare. The challenge is they are mobile, they are going to see their doctor, but they do not understand how to take their medications correctly. So they are in and out of the ER. Whether or not they are mobile and in the community, their challenge is in the home.”