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The majority of healthcare professionals now feel telemedicine is a high priority for their organisations and can deliver similar outcomes to in-person care, according to a new survey by Aeris.

Many of the survey’s respondents regard telemedicine as a high priority and a critical technology initiative for their organisations. In fact, 84% believe telemedicine devices can deliver similar outcomes to in-person visits to healthcare providers. The survey titled “Assessing the Value of Telemedicine Devices in Today’s Healthcare” took the temperature of more than 150 healthcare professionals from eight countries in November 2015 to assess the growing adoption of telemedicine solutions.

Although the consensus is favourable toward telemedicine, it is still in the early stages of adoption. Of the respondents, 32% had already deployed a telemedicine solution for their healthcare organisation, while 17% were in the process of deploying one. Only 5% considered it not immediately important, but a fast-growing investment area.

“As more individuals choose to ‘age in place,’ adopting telemedicine is a valuable solution that gives patients the freedom to move, without disrupting their lives unnecessarily with costly hospital and doctor visits,” said Janet Jaiswal, vice president of marketing at Aeris.

“Also, we found that the top two drivers behind the proliferation of telemedicine include financial pressures on healthcare organisations as well as cost savings for employers, so the benefits extend to multiple parties in the healthcare industry. While barriers to adoption remain, such as investing in the technology and patient acceptance of the technology, we remain confident about the future of telemedicine.”

A small selection of respondents, at 7%, did not see the benefits of telemedicine, which suggested that telemedicine solutions were not relevant or needed at their healthcare organisation, and only 4% considered telemedicine as not important for their organisation and the wider industry.

Recent advances in technology have buoyed the use of telemedicine solutions. Connected healthcare devices and mHealth tools have grown in popularity with patients and caregivers, as well as with doctors, pharmacies and insurance departments, due to the ability of these technologies to remotely monitor and manage care compliance. Not only can telemedicine reduce healthcare costs overall, but it is also improving patient recovery by eliminating the need for hospital stays and reducing overhead costs.

Aeris’ global support of major cellular technology standards, such as GSM, CDMA, and LTE, enables its telemedicine partners to offer customers flexibility and the potential for growth throughout the world. Partners have the ability to reach a global customer and still be compliant with the local regulatory and data requirements of that particular market.

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