Transcripts

"Bill of Health"- Telemedicine

SUSIE GHARIB: You've probably heard of tele-commuting, but what about tele-medicine? Simply put, it's a digital connection between physician and patient that allows for long distance health consultations. As Jeff Yastine reports in tonight's "Bill of Health", tele-medicine is catching on where cost and travel times are important.

JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: It looks the same as anyone else's web cam set up. The person sitting on this end is a nutrition specialist and the two people on the other end are 130 miles away. But it's not a normal web chat. This father and daughter are at a clinic, seeking counseling on her weight and eating habits. Their faces are blurred for patient confidentiality.

Tele-medicine, the digital linkup between physician and patient, is becoming more common, especially in large institutional healthcare settings. Dr. Anne Burdick, associate dean of tele-medicine at the University of Miami says it's ideal for state Medicaid programs. Tele- medecine allows those programs to stretch budget dollars further while improving the health of recipients.

DR. ANNE BURDICK, ASSOC. DEAN FOR TELEMEDICINE, MILLER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, UNIV. OF MIAMI: I think there is a cost saving that has been documented by published studies, certainly for chronic disease management for hypertension, congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes. There have been documented studies that show that when patients are connected with tele-medicine links after they got hospitalized, there is less hospitalization, less emergency medicine, no (ph) emergency room visits.

YASTINE: To date, there are more than 200 tele-medicine sites in the U.S., linking medical specialists by high-speed network connections to more than 2,000 clinics in outlying areas. Physicians and patients aren't the only ones connecting. Tele-medicine also includes real-time data from electro-cardiograms and other monitoring devices worn by patients. The concept is already being widely used in prisons for inmate healthcare. Studies of state prison facilities show clear benefits by eliminating the costs involved with the transport and security of sick prisoners. John Linkous of the says that success has lawmakers warming up to the potential cost-savings.

JONATHAN D. LINKOUS, CEO, AMERICAN TELEMEDICINE ASSOC.: I can tell you that today the landscape is far different than it was even five years ago. We have a tremendous amount of support in Congress now, for example, for changing Medicare laws. We're still working within certain Federal agencies, as well as within some of the professional medical societies so that they're more comfortable with using this new technology.

YASTINE: Tech experts like Scott Simmons at University of Miami Telemedicine say the spread of the Internet and high-speed connections make tele-medicine an idea whose time has come.

SCOTT SIMMONS, DIRECTOR, UNIV. OF MIAMI TELEMEDICINE: There's a level of comfortability that people have with technology now. So we do our banking online now. We do a variety of - we order movies, do all these other things online now so I think people are used to having this sort of instant gratification in terms of being able to get products and services online. We still haven't quite gotten to where we're demanding that in healthcare, but I think we're on the verge of that happening.

YASTINE: When it comes to routine care, many private insurers still insist on in-person consults. But experts see that changing as the nation seeks lower cost alternatives for delivering quality healthcare. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Bill of Health.