FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Audrey Kinsella, 828-252-8571

Telehospice: A new report on this newest frontier of telehealth services delivery

Kensington, Maryland. — Telehospice– or hospice care services delivered in part via telecommunications– is the focus of "Telehospice: A Resource Manual for Program Development & Implementation,” the seventh in a series of informational reports from home telehealth research firm, Information For Tomorrow.

This new report provides a practical guide for planning telehospice programs, with details on costs, needed policies and procedures, and tools’ features and selection. Two special segments are provided: on legal concerns in telehealth, written by practicing attorney, Barry B. Cepelewicz, MD, Esq.; and on needed telehospice pathways for improved outcomes, written for this report by home telehealth and hospice industry veterans, Joan Haizlip, MS, RN, and Lisa Van Dyck, MS, RN.

"The issues of costs, or costliness, of telehealth are addressed at the outset,” says Audrey Kinsella, the report’s principal researcher and writer. “It’s important that program planners learn about affordable and focused ways of extending care to patients who are nearing the end of life, so that patients can receive hospice-in-place comfortably and safely in their own homes.”

Featured in this 156-page report are five sample in-house policies and 14 suggested forms for patient and home assessments (and re-asssessments), staff training, equipment maintenance routines, and other telehealth program management concerns for achieving needed consistency in care delivery. Particular emphases are placed on the success using telehospice by 15 operating programs in the U.S.; and on practical details involved in assessing more frail patients and preparing their homes for safe telehealth delivery.

A Contents page and extended chapter overview are available online from the company’s web site, at: www.informationfortomorrow.com/newbooks.htm

Are we ready for this, now— new technology at the end of life? This book provides a focused look at “new” tools, like the telephone, the videophone, and others that we already “know,” and presents ways to use them more effectively. New needs in hospice, not just the novelty of telehealth, are what matter. As industry expert, True Ryndes, ANP, MPH, and President and CEO, National Hospice Work Group, notes about telehospice’s value: “We will be able to 'be there' frequently and immediately when hospices simply aren't able to respond to the future volume of need with our current set of tools.”

"Telehospice: A Resource Manual for Program Development & Implementation” is available from Information For Tomorrow, for $295.00 per copy, and includes 5 suggested in-house polices and 14 forms, and a 3-hour CD-ROM of a multi-authored presentation, “Telehospice,” presented by the Association of Telehealth Services Providers to a national audience on April 29, 2004. Contact: 828-252-8571 or www.InformationForTomorrow.com/newbooks.htm.