| | June 201819UTLOOK Healthcare Tech Telemedicine: A Propeller of Value Based CareBy Cletis Earle, CIO, Kaleida HealthCIO INSIGHTSTelemedicine helps diagnose and treat patients remotely has indeed become a key proponent in helping healthcare move from fee for service to value-based service. As it opens the possibility of extending affordable and swift clinical care, to anywhere, anytime, it has indeed come to push healthcare beyond the four walls of hospitals. Telemedicine for all its potential is certainly the future of healthcare. Evolution of TelemedicineTelemedicine has undergone a series of changes from telemedicine systems which were highly expensive when they first came out to today where it has become extended clinical care to the patient's household. However, what is important to note is the robustness of the transformation. Telemedicine has very swiftly come to witness the availability of advanced technological solutions as telehealth tools. For instance, digital products such as Profox Sensors, Fitbit Surge, PIP, and more have not only come to facilitate the collection of critical health information from anywhere but also enable the integration of data to patient's EMRs, thus, contributing to further development of telehealth's diagnostic capability. As telemedicine facilitates the extension of healthcare abilities to people all over the globe, I believe it has opened up an excellent venture for learning and expanding the horizons of medical knowledge. It is contributing to the exchange of new medical procedures, exposure to a wider variety of health conditions, and extension of technological solutions across the continuum. Application of Data Solutions to TelemedicineThe intersection of telemedicine and data analytics is fascinating. Although the utilization of data analytics in healthcare is still in a budding stage, it, however, has come to offer a number of benefits such as the increased capacity to predict patient's condition, ability to carry out insight-driven decisions, improvement of population health, and more. Coming to data analytics' specific application to telehealth, I envision it to open a plethora of options to both the patients and physicians. While the patient could use the analytics-driven telemedicine application to make a comprehensive understanding of health condition and engage in self-care, the physician can use the value based insights to carry out sound medical decisions.Emerging Trends in Telemedicine As AI driven predictive modeling has already come to show great promise in powering care providers to a second opinion, I see AI as the future of telemedicine. We already have companies like IBM who are exploring such modeling for oncology, tracing through tons and tons of data to draw valuable breakthroughs. I envision a time where AI will be leveraged to provide sharp details in acute care settings, and more so towards ambulatory care. I see AI's assistance in laying out robust co-relations to help providers diagnose in the right direction. Areas Requiring ImprovementAs we see a growing integration of patient monitoring devices to telemedicine systems, I believe there is a great need to
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