MDNews - Minnesota

January 2015

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as a means to consult their providers. Researchers questioned 263 people who had visited the Mayo Clinic for outpatient care. Thirty-eight percent reported being very likely to use synchronous, or real-time, video com- munication to meet with providers, and 28.1 percent said they were some- what likely to use it. Approximately 34 percent described themselves as not at all likely to videoconference with providers. A patient's age, distance from the facility and comfort level with videocon- ferencing were important predictors of likelihood to use video calls, according to the fi ndings, which were published in the September issue of Telemedicine and e-Health. The average age of likely videoconference users was approxi- mately nine years younger than that of unlikely users. Factors that seemed to make patients less receptive to using video calls had more to do with preferences about engaging with providers in person than the experience of using video- conferencing, according to Matthew Gardner, MDes, MBA, Service Designer at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation and an author of the study. "Many people believe that a video- conference is secondary to physically being with the provider," Gardner says. He views videoconferencing as part of a shift toward a healthcare paradigm in which video calls may be particularly useful in educating patients at home. "In a patient-centric future, video telemedicine to the home will be among a set of tools that providers will use to offer patients value and main- tain relationships," Gardner says. "It's unlikely we'll ever see a groundswell of demand from patients for synchronous video communication to the home, but when providers are allowed to consider it as a clinical tool to do their jobs more effectively, and therefore recommend it as a viable alternative to visiting the clinic, patients won't resist." Healthcare Spending: Prepare for a Bump The PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) Health Research Institute expects hea lthca re spending to increase by 6.8 percent this year due to several factors, not least of which are higher employment and improved perceptions of the economy. "More people are employed, and with employment comes health insur- ance, so individuals are better able to access health care," says Ceci Connolly, Managing Director of the PwC Health Research Institute. "Other individuals simply have more confi dence in the economy. They had been postponing healthcare services, but now, they're scheduling them again." O t her f a c t or s P w C c it e s a s driv ing t he projected spending increase include a growing market for high-cost specia lt y dr ugs to treat diseases such as hepatitis C; the trend of hospitals and health sys- tems acquiring physician practices, which can then charge higher hospital rates for procedures; and investments in technologies that should save orga- nizations money in the long run but are often costly to incorporate in the short term. "Getting the healthcare spending growth rate in line with the rest of the economy continues to be a chal- lenge," Connolly says. "Families and employers look at rising healthcare costs and might be tempted to squeeze other items out of their budgets. It is incumbent upon the healthcare sector to be as effi cient and productive as possible and provide as much value as it can because lower-cost alternatives are emerging — retailers and pharmacies are starting to compete with physi- cians' offi ces for lots of services." ■ M D N E W S . CO M ■ MD NEWS Minnesota | 1 3

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