As ACA Pushes Connectivity, Home Health Technologies to Double

• By: VNAA Public Policy
• On: 05/13/2014 10:43:57
• In: Messages from the CEO
• Comments: 0

Fueled by federal mandates and stimulus dollars that have helped medical care providers connect to each other and their patients, the U.S. home health technologies market is projected to double to $5.8 billion by the end of 2018, according to a new analysis.

In 2009, Obama signed into law the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, (HITECH) which was part of the federal stimulus legislation known as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

The legislation provides more than $20 billion to help doctors and hospitals move into the digital age through the use of electronic health records and related health information technology. There are also penalties in that legislation in the form of reduced Medicare payments if doctors and hospitals can’t demonstrate an adequately working electronic health record system by next year.

In an article published in Forbes, Roeen Roashan, IHS analyst for consumer medical devices and digital health stated, “As connectivity and interoperability is increasing, these products – both devices and services – are starting to converge giving consumers more comprehensive solutions…As they become more comprehensive, the gap between clinical care and home health becomes more narrow, which is necessary to provide patient centered care.”

Employers, private insurers and the Affordable Care Act, which is moving medical care providers away from fee-for-service medicine where they are paid based on volume of services to reimbursement based on the value of care they provide, will drive the trend toward these new technologies and services. This trend uses technology to manage populations of patients to keep them out of the hospital where care is more expensive with a doctor or nurse practitioner managing the patient care and not always in person.

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