Telemedicine

Saturday morning coffee [October 4, 2014]

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“Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right, decide on what you think is right and stick to it.” ~George Eliot

So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

The mug below comes straight from a little shop in the French Quarter in New Orleans. My wife and I were recently there for a few days while I attended a conference. We had a great time. The food, the people, the atmosphere, all good. We ate a lot of good food, include beignets and my first ever muffaletta.

MUG_NOLA2

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I used a telemedicine service for the first time and loved it

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My daughter woke the other morning with the following complaints: itchy eye watery eye “feels like there’s sand in my eye” and from my observation, redness in the “white” of her eye Hmm, I’ve seen this before. My initial thought was conjunctivitis, a.k.a. “Pink eye”.  I called our family pediatrician looking for something to hold us … Read more

Saturday morning coffee [March 2 2013]

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MUG_WisconsinWelcome to March everyone. So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

I picked up the coffee mug to the right in Fitchburg, WI last summer while on a business trip. I drove there from Chicago after stopping off to visit a hospital in Winfield, IL. Wisconsin was a pretty nice place to visit in the summer. I wasn’t able to do a bunch of touristy stuff, but I did get a chance to see a movie at one of the nicest movie theaters I’ve ever been in. The theater was big, and it had a piano in the lobby. Strange thing about Wisconsin, they have the nicest highway rest stops I’ve ever used. If you’re ever in California I’d avoid the rest stops; good place to skip.

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Why don’t we hear more about telepharmacy?

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With the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets these days it seems that pharmacy would finally come out of the dark ages and start using these tools to their benefit. I recently read an article at MEDCITY | News  that talked about the use of tablet technology for “telerounds”.

Telerounds: The sexy idea is about providing a way for patients in a hospital setting to communicate with their physicians even when they are not at the hospital. An early version of the concept in 2005 took the form of physician robots on account of the tablet screens being attached to “robots” that move from patient to patient. A study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers in 2005 met with positive feedback from patients and the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan has been testing the concept with patients using iPads equipped with a Apple’s Face Time program, similar to Skype, in post surgery settings. On industry expert rattled off several reasons why it just isn’t practical right now. First, it would assume that surgeons are always available when the patient needs to speak to them. Current reimbursement models don’t support it. Most hospitals don’t grow iPads on trees for patients to use upon admission. It wouldn’t work with physicians since they could not be reimbursed. Still, it might work better when patients are discharged as a solution for providers trying to reduce readmission rates.

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Telerounding with an iPad at Henry Ford Hospital

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PRWeb: The surgeon and his patient are actually 25 miles apart in two different hospitals, each armed with an iPad equipped with the live video chat software FaceTime. Through face-to-face video calls on iPads and other tablets, Henry Ford is initiating the next wave of high-tech communication at hospitals called “telerounding.” “Patients are looking for … Read more

Cool Technology for Pharmacy – eDoc Telemedicine System

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Telemedicine is one of those technologies that is either going to be unbelievably useful or a complete waste of time. Only time will tell. Recent articles like the one in Archives of Internal Medicine suggest that it may have a place in healthcare. Pharmacists may find telemedicine a useful tool for communicating with patients or physicians over great distances. I can see value in that.

While not specifically designed for pharmacy, the eDoc Telemedicine/EHR System is a cool piece of technology. For information to be useful it needs to be collected and made available at the point of care, which is exactly what this system does.

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