Policies on Telemedicine-Enhanced Hospital Services

Modern telemedicine offers to hospitals a whole range of opportunities to improve the appropriateness of their care provision, to offer new services to primary care and to contribute to patient engagement. In this chapter, the authors briefly discuss their approach to facilitate the collaborative production of region-wide telemedicine roadmaps involving the hospitals, explicitly based on national and regional healthcare strategic priorities. In addition, as an operational contribution to support their approach, they introduce a conceptual frame for evaluating and prioritizing multiple ICT-enhanced innovation interventions, within an all-inclusive plan. The proposed frame captures relevant evaluation criteria belonging to four broad categories: the systemic benefits related to the quality of care; direct economic factors; the cultural viability; and the technological feasibility. As an example, the authors simulate an application of our conceptual frame to the comparative assessment of three kinds of telemedicine-enhanced interventions: (i) to improve the care processes driven by the hospital, (ii) to support health professionals, and (iii) to promote citizen's engagement.