Analyzing the Clinical and Competitive Impact of Telemedicine -Experience with Treating Parkinson Disease Patients via Telemedicine

Abstract

We study the competitive impact of a recently introduced telemedicine practice for the care of patients with Parkinson Disease. Our initial clinical results have shown that such care is feasible, and it produces results which are on par, or superior to conventional in-person visits. In this paper we further investigate the competitive impact of Telemedicine on the Neurology Specialists. We investigate the impact of telemedicine on patients' choices, physicians' volume mix and overall load, hospitals' market share, and the role of technology adoption subsidies. We derive some general conditions under which Telemedicine not only increases access to remote patients, but also increases the catchment area for the first-mover hospital which sets up Telemedicine at the cost of its neighbors' market share. Our results also explain why the (relatively) more mobile patients will benefit the most from technology adoption subsidies by the hospital, and how community hospitals could help with this effort.