Eric C. Pan

The Value From Investments In Health Information Technology At The U.S. Department Of Veterans Affairs

We compare health information technology (IT) in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to norms in the private sector, and we estimate the costs and benefits of selected VA health IT systems. The VA spent proportionately more on IT than the private health care sector spent, but it achieved higher levels of IT adoption and quality of care. The potential value of the VAs health IT investments is estimated at

The value proposition in the widespread use of telehealth

3.09 billion in cumulative benefits net of investment costs. This study serves as a framework to inform efforts to measure and calculate the benefits of federal health IT stimulus programs.

The value of provider-to-provider telehealth.

Summary Telehealth has great potential to improve access to care but its adoption in routine health care has been slow. The lack of clarity about the value of telehealth implementations has been one reason cited for this slow adoption. The Center for Information Technology Leadership has examined the value of telehealth encounters in which there is a provider both with the patient and at a distance from the patient. We considered three models of telehealth: store-and-forward, real-time video and hybrid systems. Evidence from the literature was extrapolated using a simulation, which found that the hybrid model was the most cost-effective of the three. The simulation predicted savings of

Crossing the Evidence Chasm: Building Evidence Bridges from Process Changes to Clinical Outcomes

4.3 billion per year if hybrid telehealth systems were to be implemented in emergency rooms, prisons, nursing home facilities and physician offices across the US. We also conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine which factors most affected costs and savings. For all three telehealth models, the highest sensitivities were to the cost of a face-to-face visit, the cost of a telehealth visit and the success rate of a telehealth visit, i.e. the proportion of telehealth visits that avoided the need for a face-to-face visit. Payers, providers and policy-makers should work together to remove the barriers to the adoption of telehealth in order to make it widely available to all.

The Value Of Health Care Information Exchange And Interoperability

Telehealth has great potential to improve access to care, but its adoption in routine healthcare has been slow. The lack of clarity about the value of telehealth implementations has been one reason cited for this slow adoption. The Center for Information Technology Leadership has examined the value of telehealth encounters in which there is a provider both with the patient and at a distance from the patient. We considered three models of telehealth: store-and-forward, real-time video, and hybrid systems. Evidence from the literature was extrapolated using a computer simulation, which found that the hybrid model was the most cost effective. The simulation predicted savings of

The value of personal health record (PHR) systems.

4.3 billion per year if hybrid telehealth systems were implemented in emergency rooms, prisons, nursing home facilities, and physician offices across the United States. We also conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine which factors most influence costs and savings. Payers, providers, and policymakers should work together to remove the barriers to the adoption of telehealth so that this cost savings can be realized in the U.S. healthcare system.

The Cost of Information Technology-Enabled Diabetes Management

OBJECTIVE Although demand for information about the effectiveness and efficiency of health care information technology grows, large-scale resource-intensive randomized controlled trials of health care information technology remain impractical. New methods are needed to translate more commonly available clinical process measures into potential impact on clinical outcomes. DESIGN The authors propose a method for building mathematical models based on published evidence that provides an evidence bridge between process changes and resulting clinical outcomes. This method combines tools from systematic review, influence diagramming, and health care simulations. MEASUREMENTS The authors apply this method to create an evidence bridge between retinopathy screening rates and incidence of blindness in diabetic patients. RESULTS The resulting model uses changes in eye examination rates and other evidence-based population parameters to generate clinical outcomes and costs in a Markov model. CONCLUSION This method may serve as an alternative to more expensive study designs and provide useful estimates of the impact of health care information technology on clinical outcomes through changes in clinical process measures.