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Video Technology Aids Home Health Care

Associated Press


LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Laura Mudd checked Shirley Hendren's blood pressure, listened to his heart and lungs and check all his vital signs - all from 40 miles away.

Mudd did the checkup from Caritas Home Health's office in Bardstown, watching Hendren through a video hookup and monitoring data relayed to her computer from an array of medical devices - a process known as telemedicine.

Caritas is one of the first home-health agencies in Kentucky to use interactive video technology, a practice that's likely to become more common as cost pressures and an aging population fuel demand.

About a month ago, Caritas outfitted Hendren's house with a console incorporating a small camera, blood-pressure cuff, stethoscope, microphone, speaker, and a small screen so Hendren can see Mudd as they talk.

A digital weight scale and devices to measure Hendren's glucose and blood-oxygen levels also plug into the system. His wife, Pauline, helps as needed.

"It's like living in the space age," Shirley Hendren said.

Video conferencing isn't uncommon in the medical field. Doctors have performed long-distance surgery using video conferencing and robotic arms, but it is only now coming in to use in home health care because Medicare and private insurers don't often reimburse for "tele-homecare" visits and the equipment can prove too expensive for many agencies.

Still, several factors have combined in recent years to push home-care agencies into telehealth, including growing numbers of elderly and the rising cost of other forms of care. Agencies that cover a wide territory - like Caritas, which serves 12 counties - can cut nurses' travel time and expenses with the interactive video technology. It also lets them take on more patients, increasing revenue.

Caritas Home Health has used its telehealth setup so far on four patients, but it has enough equipment to outfit 11 homes. It pays about $2,000 a month to lease the equipment from its developer, American TeleCare.

Caritas hopes to soon have enough telehealth stations for 40 or 50 homes, said Derek Dennison, the agency's director of finance and business development. Caritas Home Health has about 60 nurses who make in-home visits and about 900 patients.

"It's very difficult, if not impossible, for any home-health agency to see a patient five, six, seven times a week, just simply because the staffing doesn't allow it," Dennison said.

Telemedicine won't replace personal visits by a nurse, Dennison said, it'll just supplement them. Caritas estimates 15 percent to 20 percent of its patients could be candidates for telemedicine.

Mudd said conducting a long-distance home-health visit isn't all that different from a live visit.

"You're still interacting with that patient, and even their caregivers, on a daily basis," she said. "You're doing assessment as if you were there."

Some Kentucky home-care agencies have equipment in patients' homes to relay vital signs electronically. But they generally lack a video hookup, said Karen Hinkle, executive director of the Kentucky Home Health Association.

Demand for telemedicine at home will grow because of "baby boomers reaching retirement age, and the number of people that have chronic diseases," said Nancy Brown, project director for Telemedicine Information Exchange, a nonprofit initiative.

"It's cheaper to be able to keep somebody at home rather than have them go to a doctor's office or a clinic," Brown said.

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Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com

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