Telemedicine Business Models Focusing on Emerging Mobile Technologies for Chronic Disease Management: UK Perspective

Abstract

There is a need for a new, co-ordinated national approach that helps people with chronic disease- and their carers - manage their chronic conditions more effectively and thus reduce the burden of chronic disease on the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. The cost-efficiency of telemedicine systems are a major trepidation to healthcare organizations because of its uncertainty of enhancing the delivery of healthcare and thereby increase the quality of care, while at the same time reducing the `economic burden of illness' to the NHS by reducing the number of patient visits to emergency rooms, reducing unnecessary physician visits to hospitals, monitoring vital signs on a 24/7 basis, therefore providing for intervention and/or prevention of repeat hospitalization. These scenarios are hard to measure from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective