Heather Timmons, The New York Times
“A private hospital, a for-profit microfinance company and an information technology company have joined forces to attempt what state and local governments have struggled to do for decades – bring quality, affordable medical treatment to India’s hundreds of millions of poor people.
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Hiep Nguyen, Vector
“Robotic technology can take many forms. In the Department of Urology at Children’s Hospital Boston, we are evaluating a remotely controlled, videoconferencing robot on wheels to help transition our patients’ care to the home after surgery.
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News-Medical
“A new pilot study is getting underway in Rhode Island aimed at improving depression in nursing home rehabilitation patients, all through telemedicine. Geriatric mental health specialists from Rhode Island and The Miriam hospitals will work with patients in the Evergreen House Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in East Providence to test the program.
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Roger Downey, GlobalMedia
“His article, “Skype for Healthcare: Is It Safe?“, on advanceweb.com, does an excellent job pointing out the problems with Skype for confidential and HIPAA-compliant use. The problem begins with its architecture. Skype uses “virtual servers” – these are other people’s computers, folks!
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Miles Ellenby, Oregon Live
“California recently passed legislation expanding the use of telemedicine that has the potential to save the state’s Medicaid program several hundred million dollars. These impressive savings could be achieved by using two-way audio-video technology for home monitoring of heart failure and diabetes patients, according to an analysis done for the Center for Connected Health Policy in Sacramento.
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Steve Swain, Nefsis
“Healthcare organisations and providers, for example, now use web and video conferencing to improve efficiency and reduce travel costs for both themselves and their patients.
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Live interactive videoconferencing and other technologies offer innovative opportunities for effective delivery of specialized child and adolescent mental health services. In this article, an example of a comprehensive telepsychiatry program is presented to highlight a variety of capacity-building initiatives that are responsive to community needs and cultures; these initiatives are allowing children, youth and caregivers to access otherwise-distant specialist services within their home communities.
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McLean S et al, BMJ, 342
Telehealthcare is personalised healthcare delivered over a distance; data are transferred from the patient to the professional, who then provides feedback
In patients with severe long term conditions, such as problematic asthma and diabetes, telehealthcare can reduce hospital admissions without increasing mortality
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Priya Ramachandran, EMR Thoughts
“The physician community has something of a split persona. Doctors are probably the only community still dedicated to using pagers to communicate with their offices. And yet, it’s no secret that the medical establishment is among the fastest growing segment among smartphone and tablet users. A widely quoted statistic from Manhattan Research stated that 81 percent of doctors would own a smartphone.
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Gill Hitchcock, Guardian Professional
“Wales’ emergency Individual Health Record (IHR) service is available at almost 50% of GP surgeries and will be available nationally by the end of 2011, the NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) says in a report on its first year of operation.
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Hay Canal
“Polycom, uno de los líderes globales en comunicaciones unificadas, CU, e International Virtual e‐Hospital, IVeH, se han asociado para desarrollar un nuevo modelo que permite a los profesionales médicos trabajar en equipo mediante vídeo y compartir su experiencia con 35 instituciones sanitarias y académicas internacionales, gracias al innovador programa de trabajo en equipo mediante vídeo de Polycom, que ha contribuido a renovar el sistema sanitario en Kosovo.
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Finkelstein SM et al, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 17(6)
We conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the perception, satisfaction and utilization of a home telehealth service for frail elderly people living independently in their home communities. Control group subjects continued with their usual care and intervention group subjects were able to supplement their usual care with the use of a web portal. The web portal allowed videoconferencing and electronic messaging between home care nurses and clients, ordering health-related and home care services, access to health-related information and general access to the Internet. A total of 99 eligible people (59 female, 40 male) from one urban and one rural study site agreed to participate in the study. Eighty-four subjects were active participants for nine months.
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David Astley, ComputerWeekly
“At a government event recently, Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, said he would like to see more doctors regularly offering remote consultations to patients via video link within the next year. With the NHS facing severe spending cuts, the move could allow the NHS to make savings while reducing waiting times for millions of patients in the UK.
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Kanthraj GR. Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, 77(3)
The study and practice of dermatology care using interactive audio, visual, and data communications from a distance is called teledermatology. A teledermatology practice (TP) provides teleconsultation as well tele-education. Initially, dermatologists used videoconference. Convenience, cost-effectiveness and easy application of the practice made “store and forward” to emerge as a basic teledermatology tool. The advent of newer technologies like third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) mobile teledermatology (MT) and dermatologists’ interest to adopt tertiary TP to pool expert (second) opinion to address difficult-to-manage cases (DMCs) has resulted in a rapid change in TP. Online discussion groups (ODGs), author-based second opinion teledermatology (AST), or a combination of both are the types of tertiary TP.
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Technology for Doctors Online
“The Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) is adopting web-based technology to create a tele-home care system that will interoperate with its existing video conferencing network, thereby extending the reach of its telehealth services into patient homes. OTN expects to roll out the new network to thousands of patients and providers throughout the province over the next three years.
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Randall Stross, The New York Times
“Today, even with the rise of the Internet, virtual therapy hasn’t been widely adopted. But several start-up companies are trying to make Dr. Dwyer’s decades-old vision a workaday reality.
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Technology for Doctors Online
“A six-month telepsychiatry pilot program was launched in April at the Douglas Memorial Hospital in Fort Erie to serve patients throughout the Niagara region. Dubbed the Rapid Referral Outpatient Program (RROP), the services are being offered to help residents struggling with cognitive disorders and dementia. The program will be evaluated at the end of the trial period.
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Meaningful HIT News with Neil Versel
“Last week, I reported in InformationWeek on a Manhattan Research study showing that 7 percent of U.S. physicians were chatting with patients via videoconference. What the research didn’t say is how many consultations actually take place by videoconferencing. My guess is that it’s minuscule, but virtual visits will soon become commonplace.
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Jim O'Neill, FierceVoIP
“Taking the Pulse, an annual market research report from Manhattan Research, found that the market for high-end telemedicine is continuing to grow, with seven percent of U.S. physicians use video conferencing to communicate with their patients.
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Sara Jackson, FierceHealthcare
“A full 7 percent of physicians are using video-conferencing to talk with patients, according to new data released by Manhattan Research, from its 2011 Taking the Pulse study.
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