Can telemedicine help integrate the referral-based healthcare system? An economic and operational analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Telemedicine can help specialists in providing efficient care to patients from a distance and it has been growing steadily in healthcare. This study aims to provide an operational perspective by investigating the effect of telemedicine on patients' choices, healthcare providers' service decisions, service quality and total social welfare.

Methods

We propose an optimization model that incorporates patients' choices and physicians' actions under two scenarios: full coverage and partial coverage. We analyze the model and conduct numerical experiments to explore the impact of telemedicine in a referral-based healthcare system with heterogeneous patients.

Results

The findings show that telemedicine can induce greater collaboration between generalists and the specia

SUBMITTER: Cao X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12617913 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature