According to Gary Campbell, president, Cytta, a company focused on bringing eHealth solutions to the market, currently the U.S. spends more on health care than any other country in the world, especially in the remote call monitoring sector.
In a recent discussion on the company's business model and examination of the company's pursuit of involvement in the eHealth initiative, Campbell said that the company was motivated not only by the desire to deliver an improved quality of care but also by the opportunities resulting from the level of current and future spending in this arena.
Campbell said the overall health spending in the country is anticipated to increase significantly due to aging of populations and rising prevalence of chronic disease. According to the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, US national health expenditure rose to an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009, which represents 17.3 percent of 2009 GDP. Healthcare spending is expected to cross $3.4 trillion by 2015, according to the agency.
According Cytta, eHealth can provide high value and cost-effective care, and it can be utilized to help to alleviate growing and possibly acute physician shortages that are currently anticipated. eHealth solutions are especially necessary to meet the need of the country's aging population.
eHealth, according to Cytta, is the "solution set at the intersection of health care and telecommunications." It has been loosely defined as the "delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies."
With eHealth, healthcare providers can interact with specialized monitoring devices such as glucose, cardiac monitor, blood pressure cuff, and more to deliver health-related information or services from the consumer to the provider while enhancing efficiency of the healthcare outcome. eHealth leverages wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and utilizes communication gateway devices including smartphone, computer, and telephone, to interact with such devices.
The FCC (News - Alert)'s National Broadband Plan, which aims to expand the broadband Internet access to help boost the economy and improve healthcare, currently estimates the potential for $700 billion in savings over 15-25 years from eHealth. It is estimated that remote monitoring alone could generate net savings of approximately $200 billion over 25 years from just four chronic conditions, according to Cytta officials.
According to Cytta eHealth increases the availability of care in low-cost settings, such as preventative care in the home, to avert higher subsequent costs in high-cost settings such as emergency rooms and intensive care units where cost of care can exceed $10,000 per day.
eHealth is also designed to manage care of the chronically ill, the 10 percent of patients that account for 70 percent of costs. The remote monitoring solutions help the patients avoid high-cost emergency care in the cases of congestive heart failure, diabetes, etc. With the helps of remote monitoring solutions, the country could save an estimated $21.1 billion per year, a portion of which will offer significant revenue opportunities to the participants in this area, Cytta said.
Earlier in April, Cytta announced it is striving to develop and introduce a comprehensive home based healthcare system that will address the numerous failings and weaknesses of the current system, which includes paper-based systems, aging populations, and increasing rates of chronic disease that are overwhelming even the most efficient health care systems.
Cytta is negotiating with three different organizations to complete the integration of their very crucial elements into the company's eHealth technologies and model, company officials said.
Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire