Medicare Center Tests Telemedicine In Treating Chronic Illnesses

The project will give 2,000 patients Internet-connected equipment to collect vital signs that nurses and doctors can monitor remotely.

Sometimes patients living with serious chronic illnesses, such as congestive heart failure, could avoid trips to the emergency room if their medical conditions were monitored daily for warning signs so that nurses or doctors could intervene sooner, before situations get out of hand.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is trying to kick-start that type of early intervention, and learn where it works best, with a new home-health-monitoring telemedicine project that will launch in January.

The project will involve 2,000 chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries who receive their care from one of two large medical groups, Bend Memorial Clinic in Bend, Ore., and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center in Wenatchee, Wash. The patients chosen by the centers for the project are under care for conditions such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or diabetes.

The medical groups will soon begin contacting those patients to voluntarily participate in the program, which also will feature "a lot of front-end education," about their illnesses and preventive care, says Justin Wray, a clinical research coordinator at Bend Memorial Clinic.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
InformationWeek

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