Efficient Telemedicine

However, there is a lack of overview of both clinical effects, patient satisfaction as well as organisational and economical consequences for telemedicine. Therefore, the telemedicine should not be implemented uncritically.

AIM

The purpose of this project was to describe evidence-based digital health technologies and thereby give the clinical divisions on the region’s somatic hospitals information about new possibilities for applying digital technologies.

The project was completed through a search in the PubMed database for scientific, international literature about digital health technology. The search included randomised studies or studies with control groups which explores the effect of telemedicine for hospital patients, published within the last 10 years. Furthermore, the project went through the telemedicine map looking for relevant projects and collected scientific studies of the projects. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with regional experts about their experience with already existing telemedicine solutions.

RESULTS

The literature search resulted in 2825 hits and a total of 331 articles were included for data extraction and evaluation. The result was a database with results within 22 different medical dissertations. The database gives an overview of possible technologies, patient groups and the effect of the technologies are available online on telemedicine.cimt.dk.

The percentage of studies showing a positive statistically significant clinical effect of the use of digital health technology was 48% (164 articles), while 47% showed no statistically significant difference. Only 6 articles (2%) showed a significant negative effect.

The project, and the appertaining website, gives the individual divisions on the hospitals in the Region of Southern Denmark and other interested parties an overview of the possible telemedicine technologies and their effect. Subsequently, is it up to the individual divisions for themselves to evaluate which technologies are relevant for their patients and their organisation.

See the project’s results at telemedicine.cimt.dk and search across the article database. More about the project is also to be found here.