Healthcare in the Home: How Distributed Health Service Delivery Can Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes

Abstract

Recent studies of home healthcare provision using existing technologies have shown reductions of 15-30% compared with hospital-based care for similar patient populations, with savings that may potentially be realized from a full embrace of existing telehealth and home healthcare services over the next 25 years projected at $200 billion. Considerably greater cost reductions may be attainable using powerful, distributed technologies currently under development, and benefiting from ubiquitous broadband that is a proximate reality. By allowing a competitive environment to evolve in which entry by distributed health service providers occurs at scale, government at various jurisdictional levels can simultaneously address first-order national concerns related to the budget, the economy, and the quality of life of citizens.