What kind of data can be received via telehealth?

Answer 1

The answer depends on the particular application of telehealth you are talking about, and there is some overlap regardless of the applications.

If the application is remote patient monitoring, you could transfer a variety of patient data from remote monitoring devices that can be connected via telehealth technology to clinicians or centralized data repositories. These devices aggregate information from multiple peripheral devices that can be connected to the patient. So the data could be anything that comes from:

* blood pressure cuffs

* blood glucose monitors

* pulse oximeters

* PT/INR meter

* thermometer

* ECG

* peak flow meter

* pedometer

* stethoscope

Now if the application is for remote diagnosis and treatment of patients in a clinic/hospital setting, some of the same information could be used. However, in these scenarios, the situation is more acute and the available data can also vary. You could have any of this data available depending on the sophistication of the telehealth technology:

* EHR record

* Labs/Vitals

* Patient images (CT, MRI, X-ray, etc.)

* Patient demographic data (e.g. name, DOB, etc.)

* Medical history, etc.

* anything on the Flow Sheet

* real-time images from scopes or ultrasound

There is a lot of complexity involved in getting telehealth solutions started and there are a variety of resources to help people understand how to get things rolling. They are included in the related links.