High Tech House Calls, Telemedicine Differentiate in Hospital Marketing

For centuries, doctors made house calls to patients’ homes. Except in some rural communities, these visits have become about as practical as using mustard plasters to promote respiratory health.

In today’s world, telemedicine increasingly enables doctor-patient communications in two different places for a high-tech house call. Telemedicine is also a great “hook” for hospital marketing and brand differentiation. What’s more, as technology improves, quality of service is enhanced and costs are reduced.

Here are a few examples of high tech at work in hospital marketing:

Sweet Home Alabama’s Video Technology Helps Doctors Treat Rural Patients

Telemedicine applications are using advanced video technology throughout Alabama to help physicians in one part of the state oversee the treatment of patients who are miles away or where travel is difficult.

In fact, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital has successfully teamed up with Specialists on Call, which is a company focusing on providing telemedicine to health care providers nationwide.

The result? The UAB hospital is one of the state leaders for stroke-related patient care. Now, telemedicine is helping other hospitals across Alabama treat other stroke victims by communicating with UAB doctors and specialists.

Telehealthcare Helps Asthma Patients Breathe Easier – And With Fewer Hospital Visits

Telehealthcare or telemedicine has the potential for providing care for many long-term and continuing care conditions such as asthma, according to a PubMed.gov article. PubMed researched the telehealthcare interventions used for treating asthma to determine whether such approaches to care are effective.

Specifically, they searched various ongoing and unpublished trials, databases, and other electronic resources, including the Cochrane Airways Group Specialised Register of Trials and PsycINFO. They were most interested in studies that measured quality of life, number of visits to the emergency department, and the number of admissions to hospital.

Their results identified 21 randomized controlled trials for their analysis. The methods of telehealthcare intervention that these studies investigated were the telephone and video- and Internet-based models of care. The most interesting finding was a significant reduction in the number of patients admitted to a hospital once or more over 12 months by using telemedicine to treat asthma sufferers, though they found no evidence of a clinically important impact on patients’ quality of life.

We can tele-conference with you if you like. We can talk about how to leverage telemedicine advances in your hospital marketing, hospital publicity or physician relations for a fresh, stronger, more effective plan.