The Telemedicine Reporter – International Edition – January 27th 2012
Rwanda:
District Hospitals to Practice Telemedicine
Huye — Hospitals will soon begin using telemedicine technologies to treat patients. Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technologies to provide distant clinical healthcare at. The technology helps improve access to medical services that would otherwise not be available in rural areas. A pilot study is set to be conducted for a period of three months starting on February 1. It will be carried out between the University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB) and Bushenge Hospital in Rusizi District, Western Province and Nyanza Hospital in the Southern Province. After the pilot study, the project will extend to four other district hospitals. “Our target is to have all district hospitals in the country covered,” said Eng. Van Joseph Majyambere, a technician consultant working on the project. “The extension will depend on the availability of all needed infrastructure including teleconference equipment and a fibre-optic network for a stable internet connection”. According to Majyambere, a feasibility study was successfully conducted countrywide. “A team of doctors and technicians is ready to start implementing the project,” he observed. The project will be monitored by an Italian expert in telemedicine, Dr G. L. Alcaro.
Sparks Healthcare touts telemedicine benefits to Arkansas Governor Beebe
Dr. Margaret Tremwel, a physician at Sparks Health System, explains the hospital’s telemedicine network to Gov. Mike Beebe. Arkansas and Oklahoma medical personnel on Wednesday (Jan. 25) made a 30-minute presentation that resulted in Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe suggesting their model for stroke treatment could represent the future of medicine. Dr. Margaret Tremwel, a physician at Sparks Health System and leading neurologist in the field of stroke management, worked with Sparks CEO Melody Trimble and officials with Sequoyah Memorial Hospital in Sallisaw, Okla., to explain to Beebe the benefits of a regional telemedicine network. The network, according to information from Sparks, has “preserved or save the lives” of 41 regional residents between January and November 2011.
Hopeful Factors Pave Way for Further Growth in Global Telemedicine Market
In the recent years, the telemedicine has evolved from a trend to a developing industry. According to a new research report by RNCOS, several promising factors have become instrumental in the growth of the telemedicine industry across the globe. The need for good quality healthcare in rural areas, lack of sufficient hospitals and healthcare centers, shortage of good quality physicians and nurses, and geographical limitations to healthcare are among the major factors promoting the global telemedicine market, which is receiving support from governments worldwide. The study, “Global Telemedicine Market Analysis”, anticipates that the global telemedicine market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of around 19% during 2010-2015. Driven by rising aging population, augmented medical requirements in isolated locations, and technological developments, the global market for telemedicine was anticipated to be nearly US$ 9.8 Billion in 2010. Telemedicine and its varied applications are growing and diversifying. Besides, there are promising developments happening in the sector across the globe. Through its varied advantages, the telemedicine aims at overcoming healthcare limitations in geographies, namely the US, Europe, Japan, China and India. At the geographical front, the US and Europe dominate the global telemedicine market. The report, which is spread over 60 pages, provides a thorough research and rational analysis of the current and expected status of the global telemedicine market. Highlighting various telemedicine processes, such as Real-time Telemedicine, Remote Monitoring and Store-and-forward Telemedicine, the study facilitates the present and future forecasts for the industry.
Dermatologists find telemedicine effective for patient care
UC Davis Health System dermatologists, using videoconferencing technology known as teledemedicine, have determined that live interactive consultations can improve clinical outcomes for patients because they usually involve beneficial changes in medical diagnosis and disease management that otherwise might not occur. The findings appear in the current issue of the Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, which was published this week. April Armstrong, the study’s senior author and a UC Davis assistant professor of dermatology, said she and her team wanted to investigate the efficacy of live video consultations to provide patient care from a distance. “Telemedicine for dermatology patients is a great tool in dermatology because skin conditions can be readily examined in digital still or video images,” said Armstrong.
Telemedicine may reduce barrier to access for ROP treatment
Treatment of retinopathy of prematurity in pediatric patients is 99% successful, a speaker said here, assuming the children can be properly diagnosed and treated in time. Proper use of telemedicine and a software safety net to manage the data help ensure that treatment is delivered when and where it is needed, Antonio Capone, MD, FACS, said at Retina 2012. “In the future, we will employ remote digital image interpretation to ensure a proper level of ROP care,” Dr. Capone said. A key aspect to the use of telemedicine is the software necessary to track the data, Dr. Capone said. Such a tool must be able to remotely acquire digital images, provide a platform for interpretation of fundus findings, include an algorithm for evidence-based disease management, include access to expertise, and provide a summary report and recommendations that can be tied into electronic health records that will follow the patient, he said.
Telemedicine Market Trends
A Shift away from reimbursement models – Reimbursement has been the Holy Grail for telemedicine in America but the rapid growth of managed care, Accountable Care Organizations and medical homes are changing the way we pay for telemedicine services. One quarter of all Americans–73 million patients–are now covered under a managed care health insurance program. With this shift, the focus of decision-making is gradually turning to local and regional healthcare decision makers. Telemedicine as a standard of care – Medical images, like x-rays and CT scans, have been viewed in digital form for forty years. “Teleradiology” is now so common that many hospitals don’t recognize the name – outsourcing part or all of a radiology program is just the way things are now done in healthcare. Providing 24/7 services by a radiologist, using telehealth technologies, may be the first form of telemedicine that becomes a true standard of care; as such it would be included in state, federal and Joint Commission requirements and be a basis for court decisions on medical liability and hospital accountability. It would not surprise me to see a legal case decided on this basis. Emergence of remote clinical enterprises outsourcing the interpretation of medical images is now used by most hospitals in the United States. A relatively new and related market is the use of private firms of medical specialists to provide other remote clinical consultations. If a hospital can completely outsource its (non-interventional) radiological services, why not outsource neurology, psychiatry or a host of other clinical services? A series of small vendors have emerged to provide telehealth consults for stroke care, mental health, hospitalist services, and dermatology. Some of these firms may be considered competitors to hospital-based telemedicine programs. Look for mergers and expansions of such enterprises as the market grows.
The rise of virtual medical centers
In October, Mercy Hospitals announced that it would build a $90 million virtual care center near its headquarters in Chesterfield, Missouri. This center will host an array of clinical specialists who will serve patients in outlying centers across the four states in which Mercy operates. On a smaller scale, intensivists at Inova Health System in Virginia are based at corporate office building and provide remote ICU services to 122 ICU beds throughout northern Virginia. Other health systems are looking closely at these developments and, if proven successful, will start on their own versions.
A digital speech infrastructure for hospitals in the Middle East
Speech recognition can improve healthcare workflow in a wide range of clinical specialties and administrative tasks. With healthcare modernization top of the agenda across the Middle East, HealthTech Wire talked to Lincoln Payne, Nuance Healthcare Middle East Sales Director, about experiences with the technology in the region so far and why new hospitals can benefit quickly. In the Middle East, Nuance has to provide a speech recognition solution for a multi-lingual, multi-cultural community of doctors – how does this work? We offer English language speech recognition solutions across the Middle East. But the amazing thing about Nuance technologies is that the software can recognize many accents. It learns and adapts to its user and will even correct what you are trying to say. This is important, because, as you said, many hospital staff are expatriates, speaking English as a second language in a variety of accents and we need to ensure that all of them deliver consistent, high-quality medical documentation.
European Commission supports Global eHealth Strategies
The European Commission (DG Information Society and Media) is a partner of the Global eHealth Strategies symposium. The European Union has actually established a policy framework in Global Health, which for the first time brings together internal and external policies around the objective of improving the EU collective contribution to global health. This Communication aims to contribute to improved governance at global and national levels. In this context, the EU will work to enhance its current work on health care data collection with relevant national and international bodies such as WHO, the OECD and the Health Metrics Network, to improve health information systems and the collection of comparable data and statistics to allow benchmarking and inform global, European and national policies. The EU will also continue to promote the use of ICT, including eHealth. The Communication also provides an opportunity to better link EU efforts in advancing health knowledge with global needs and, in turn, to better link this knowledge and evidence with the overall dialogues on health policies. In the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space, eHealth has also been identified as a priority domain and a political commitment. As far as implementation is concerned, the objective is to promote coordination among all public-private stakeholders, in order to avoid fragmentation of initiatives, dilution of resources and therefore maximising impact on the ground.
Upcoming Events
Don’t miss out on the largest telehealth event of the year: ATA 2012 in San Jose, Calif.
ATA 2012 (April 29 to May 1 in San Jose, Calif.) meets the changing needs of healthcare professional who utilize telemedicine, telehealth and mHealth technologies. Whether you a novice or an expert, the ATA 2012 program offers new energy and new ways to learn about the latest developments in the field. ATA 2012 will be our largest meeting ever, with 450-plus peer reviewed presentations, 200-plus exhibitors and a keynote presentation by Apple Co-Founder, Steve Wozniak.
New Delhi, India
Jan 30, 2012
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Valencia, Spain
Jan 30- Feb 04, 2012
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International Congress on Telehealth and Telecare 2012
The King’s Fund, London, United Kingdom
March 6-8, 2012
Telemedicine Experience@Prospects
Donetsk, Ukraine
March 19-20, 2012
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Luxembourg
April 18-20, 2012
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Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
May 14-16, 2011
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World Health Care Congress Europe
Amsterdam, Netherlands
May 23-24, 2012
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IFA 11th Global Conference on Ageing
Prague, Czech Republic
May 28 – June 1, 2012
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3rd International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with IT
Hyderabad, India
August 31 – Sept 1, 2012
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Health 2.0 Europe (2012)Berlin, Germany
Nov 6-7, 2012
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