Looking to Telehealth Care to Cap Economic Costs and Reach Autism Community

Summary of “Economic Evaluations for Service Delivery in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Benefit-Cost Analysis for Emerging Telehealth Systems,” (2013), Angjellari-Dajci F., Stachura, M. E., Lawless, W. F., Wood, E. A., and DiBattistto, C. In  I. M. Miranda and M. M. Cruz-Cunha eds. Handbook of Research on ICTs for Healthcare and Social Services: Developments and Applications, Hershey, PA: IGI

Can telehealth medicine, including Behavior Imaging, be the answer to problems millions of Americans are facing? Authors of a new IGI book on autism seem to think so. Traditional in-person interventions—which includes everything from the diagnostic assessment to the supervision of treatments—for those on the autism spectrum have so far been incapable of meeting the growing demand for services and support. With so many people in need of care and unable to get it, telehealth intervention programs have the potential to be the solution we are looking for.

Authors Fiorentina Angjellari-Dajci, Max Stachura, William Lawless, Elena Astapova Wood, and Caroline DiBattisto did an extensive analysis on the subject with the conclusion that telehealth interventions can be immensely more economically beneficial than in-person interventions, especially from the perspective of patients/caregivers. The team of researchers also looked into the economic costs and benefits of a systematic change towards telehealth interventions.