A recent study from Wilmington, Del.-based Nemours Children’s Health found that more than a third of pediatric orthopedic cases transferred to hospitals could have been avoided through the use of telemedicine.
Often, pediatric patients end up in urgent care with sprains and broken bones, and these facilities rarely have pediatric specialists on staff, according to a Jan. 8 news release from the American Hospital Association.
Alfred Atanda, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Nemours, wrote the study, which developed models to determine whether and how patients could have been treated differently if an urgent care provider and a pediatric orthopedic specialist had used a telemedicine consult.
Several cases could have been telemedicine visits, saving parents and patients costly ambulance rides and hospital care.
"In most situations, a consultation between physicians, conducted via telemedicine, will cost less than automatically transferring the patient in an ambulance," Dr. Atanda said in the release. "With the rise of telemedicine and the ease of sharing medical images, triaging patients by moving information and knowledge could be more cost-effective than physically moving patients," he added.
The average cost for a patient transferred from urgent care to a new facility via ambulance was $6,610, according to AHA.
A telemedicine consult with no further action costs an average of $120, AHA added, and the average cost for all cases, including patients who require a non-emergent follow-up appointment with a specialist, costs $4,858.