Feasibility and Effectiveness of Telehealth in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Taiwan

Recent studies have demonstrated the promising potential that telehealth has in management of chronic disease. For COPD patients, implementation of telehealth reduced readmissions, emergency room visits, and exacerbations and was cost-effective. Telehealth as a method of delivering healthcare to remote, resource-deprived areas is not lacking in evidence of benefit; however, the situation about its more widespread use for monitoring purposes is much less clear. To date, most of the studies dealing with telehealth in COPD were conducted in countries covering vast territories. Therefore, it needs to be investigated whether telehealth conveys similar advantages for COPD patients in a small island country.