Colorado Springs – Elva Whaley propped her cane against the wall, eased onto her pink-flowered bedspread and reached for a blood pressure cuff hooked to a computer.
Moments later, red numbers flashed on the screen.
“My blood pressure’s 130 over 59, which is fine,” Whaley says with authority. “And my heart rate is 82, which is good.”
Next, she reached for a stethoscope plugged into the machine.
During a four-month pilot study, Whaley’s blood pressure and heart rate were transmitted to Lisa Miller, a Centura Health at Home nurse 8 miles away.
“Lisa would listen to my heart and lungs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” the 64-year- old woman explained.
The computer-monitoring program saved Centura’s Penrose- St. Francis Hospital $1 million in its first six months, according to Erin Denholm, the project director.
“Telemedicine” has shown such promise in curbing health costs that state lawmakers are crafting legislation to fund home telehealth programs statewide.
State Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, said he is working with Gov. Bill Owens to create bipartisan legislation that would expand health technology funding.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity with telehealth,” Hagedorn said. “The quality of care and savings are just dramatic.”
Centura, the state’s largest hospital system, selected Whaley and 14 other high-risk Penrose- St. Francis patients for real-time monitoring as part of a two-year pilot project.
The project has evolved into a full-fledged program and been expanded to Denver.
Pilot participants were older Medicare patients with diabetes, congestive heart failure and emphysema – conditions that can go from stable to deadly within hours, according to Denholm.
The program reduced emergency-room visits to zero and cut hospital admissions 90 percent, she said.
After surviving back-to-back heart attacks in April and May, Whaley, who also suffers from multiple sclerosis, became a participant in the Centura program.
Miller, the nurse, met with Whaley in her bedroom via an Internet connection. She asked Whaley what she’d been eating, how she’d been sleeping and whether she had gotten winded climbing the stairs.
“She’s like a friend I can depend on,” says Whaley, who has not had to go back to the hospital and this month was discharged from the program. “I’m going to miss her.”
Traditional in-home nurse visits are pre-scheduled, so symptoms that arise on a Monday may not be caught for days.
Virtual visits, on the other hand, can be initiated by the patient any time, and early warning signs are caught before they become serious, Denholm said.
And, over time, patients become aware of the link between their symptoms and behaviors they can correct, she added.
There are still only a smattering of telehealth programs in the country, and few studies have been done to measure the effectiveness of such programs.
This has deterred the largest private health insurers and government health programs, such as Medicare, from paying for home telehealth, according to a 2004 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy.
The Department of Veterans Affairs operates one of the nation’s oldest and most sophisticated telehealth networks and has pioneered a virtual mental- health network in Colorado and eight surrounding states.
The VA’s home telehealth program also has reined in congestive heart failure, emphysema and diabetes costs, said Jeffrey Lowe, telehealth coordinator for the VA’s Rocky Mountain Health Care Network.
In Denver, 137 veterans participate in telehealth programs.
So far, the VA reports a 53 percent reduction in the length of hospital stays and savings of $508,335. Outpatient visits dropped 52 percent. The total cost savings for the program so far is nearly $1.2 million.
“It’s very well-received by the veterans,” Lowe said. “I think that they appreciate that someone cares about them, and they feel better connected to the system.”
Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-820-1242 or maustin@denverpost.com.
