Telehealth Reduces Mortality and Emergency Admissions

A new study confirms telehealth's effectiveness in improving outcomes and avoiding the need for emergency hospital care for patients with long-term conditions.

Researchers at the Nuffield Trust (London, United Kingdom), the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE; United Kingdom), and other institutions conducted a pragmatic, multisite, cluster randomized trial involving 3,230 people--1,570 intervention group and 1,584 control patients--with diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or heart failure recruited from 179 general practices in England between May 2008 and November 2009. Telehealth interventions involved remote exchange of data between patients and healthcare professionals as part of patients’ diagnosis and management. The main outcome measure was the proportion of patients admitted to hospital during the 12-month trial period.

The results showed that compared with controls, the intervention group presented a 45% reduction in mortality rate; a 20% reduction in emergency admissions; 15% fewer accident and emergency departments (A&E) visits; a 14% reduction in bed days; and an 8% reduction in tariff costs. The differences in emergency admissions were greatest at the beginning of the trial, during which the researchers observed a particularly large increase for the control group. Observed differences in other forms of hospital use, including notional costs, were not significant in general. The study was published on June 21, 2012, in BMJ.

“Telehealth is associated with lower mortality and emergency admission rates. The reasons for the short term increases in admissions for the control group are not clear, but the trial recruitment processes could have had an effect,” concluded lead author Adam Steventon, a senior research analyst at the Nuffield Trust, and colleagues.

“This paper confirms that telehealth significantly reduces deaths, helps patients to avoid the need for emergency hospital admissions, and shortens hospital stays when compared with traditional approaches to care,” added Simon Arnold, Managing Director of Tunstall Healthcare (London, United Kingdom), a supplier of telehealthcare solutions. “This is absolutely complementary to our work with partners across the UK and provides an indisputable evidence base for clinicians and commissioners when making decisions about patient care in the future.”

Related Links:
Nuffield Trust
London School of Economics and Political Science
Tunstall Healthcare