Development and implementation of a national telehealth project for long-term care: a preliminary study.
The aging population is a global phenomenon. The skyrocketing costs of healthcare and the shortage of healthcare providers will soon become a crucial issue all over the world. Taiwan's government executed the Taiwan's Telehealth Pilot Project (TTPP) from July 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, using healthcare information technology to tackle these problems. The system has three different models, the home-care, the community-care, and the residential-care model to assist the elderly in the pursuit of better healthcare and improved quality of life. The results revealed both the home-care and community-care models facilitated timely medical responses if the enrolled patients had emergent conditions. In the home-care model, the hospital readmission rate was reduced from 8.19% to 3.17%, and the hospital visit rate was decreased from 2.95% to 2.90%. In community-care model, the medication nonadherence rate was reduced from 38.20% to 9.20%. In the residential-care model, reduced rates of readmission to the hospital, nosocomial infection and the adverse drug event were found. Telehealth enabled the aged with chronic illnesses to live independently and helped the institutionalized elderly get acute care more efficiently without increased manpower of healthcare organization.
Hsu
Min-Huei
MH
Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Chu
Tu-Bin
TB
Yen
Ju-Chuan
JC
Chiu
Wen-Ta
WT
Yeh
Geng-Chang
GC
Chen
Tzay-Jinn
TJ
Sung
Yen-Jen
YJ
Hsiao
Jack
J
Li
Yu-Chuan Jack
YC
D008134:Long-Term Care; D010865:Pilot Projects; D013624:Taiwan; D017216:Telemedicine