...Telemedicine in India: Initiatives and Perspective B.S.Bedi Senior Director Department of Information Technology Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India eHealth 2003: Addressing the Digital Divide-17th Oct. 2003 What is Telemedicine? • Telemedicine is the use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participants … Institute of Medicine, 1996 Introduction • Telemedicine primarily refers to use of Telecommunication for diagnosis and treatment of disease • Emergent mode of delivery of health care at distance • Telemedicine provides healthcare where there is none and improves the health care where there is some • One way to bring / provide access to quality health care to under-served rural & urban masses Telemedicine: India’s Option or Necessity • India characterized by low penetration of healthcare services • 90% of secondary & tertiary healthcare facilities in cities and towns away from rural India where 68% of population lives • Primary health care facilities for rural population highly inadequate • Despite several initiatives by Government & private sector the rural and remote areas continue to suffer from absence of quality healthcare • Significant proportion of patients in remote locations could be successfully managed locally with advice/ guidance from specialists/ super-specialists in cities, without having to travel to the specialists. • Key driver of public:private...
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... Tana M. Daniel Steven Fowler January 31, 2011 Evolution of Health Care Information Systems Bridging the gap in health care information technology will promote safe, proficient, patient-focused, and effective patient care in a timely manner. In this paper the subject is to examine two contemporary health care organizations and compare and contrast several features that will include the type of information systems currently in use, analyze the transmission of data 20 years ago and how the exchange of data today. In addition, this paper will cover two major events and technology advances that have influenced current HCIS practices. Five information systems seen in health care organizations are (Wagner, 2009) 1) computerized provider order entry 2) medication administration 3) telemedicine 4) telehealth, and 5) personal health records (p. 121). Each system can provide quality improvement, improve patient safety, and be cost effective. Skilled Nursing Facilities have made significant changes over the last 20 years, in comparison to now. Looking at a skilled nursing facility present time versus a skilled nursing facility operation of Dunseith Community Nursing Home in North Dakota 20 years ago. With the implementation of new rules and regulations, this requires skilled nursing facilities to focus on quality patient care and organizational standards. Patient rights become prominent. In the 1980s, investigations among nursing homes...
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...Telemedicine Introduction According to the American Telemedicine Association, telemedicine has become a world leading innovative strategy for providing quality health care to patients via the exchange of medical services using communication technology (Siegal, 2012). This exchange of medical information has brought the accessibility to health care to many patient in which otherwise would not have the required resources to access many health care services. In many scenarios, telemedicine has bridged the gap between the need of specialized medical technology at one specific location and an individual’s medical diagnosis at another. Hospitals and other health care providers, which service rural areas of the country, now have an avenue of approach when dealing with accessibility of patients, especially the aging population in these areas. Telemedicine has provided the way of accessing technology and reaching out to a new strategy of practical medicine. In this research we will discuss many of the value added approaches of telemedicine and how it has affected the change in healthcare. There are three main areas of focus that will be considered. As stated, we will discuss and assess the technology currently being used to provide telemedicine services. This technology is broad and can cover vast amounts of information, but the focus will be to explain the main contributors of telemedicine technology and the adoption of this technology by providers. The first part of emphasis...
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...2011 John Pew Demand Versus Supply Paper The use of telemedicine as a health care delivery system has proven very beneficial in a rural health care setting. The patients in need of health care in rural communities provide the demand for health care services, and telemedicine is an effective way to meet the demands of the patients. “Health economists focus on trade-offs, choices that must be made, scarcity of resources and allocating resources among competing needs, not on defining one specific need” (Gretzen, 2007, p. 24). Telemedicine is the exchange of medical and health information between a health care provider and a patient who are potentially hundreds of miles apart. “Currently, the demand for health care is on the rise and increasing at an uncontrollable rate” (Provencher & Nuccio, 2011, p. 27), and telemedicine is one method of meeting the increasing demand for health care. Consumer Demand Gretzen (2007) stated “demand is the relationship between price and quantity” (p. 25). Health care economics also has to consider the law of demand, which is as the price increases assuming all other variables stay constant, the quantity of services purchased will decline. With an aging population in rural communities, the access to specialty physicians is a huge barrier for this group of patients as normally the specialty physicians are hundreds of miles away from the community they reside in. Telemedicine embraces the possibility of reaching out to patients who...
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...Chapter Proposal Title: Mobile Telemedicine Systems for Remote Patient’s Chronic Wound Monitoring Mission and Major Concerns: This chapter describes the implementation of a telemedicine system for patient’s chronic wound monitoring using smart phone. Smart phone has been recognized as a possible tool for telemedicine. In fact, the mobile telephony has been providing a lot of offers new devices with some useful resources like serial ports and Internet connections. This system proved to be quick and reliable. Chronic wounds have become a big challenge in medical health care problem globally. The skin is an incredible organ often known as "the largest organ of the human body" as it stretches throughout all the body parts. A wound is defined...
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...eHealth Global Development 1. Introduction Telemedicine as a health care approach was fundamentally born during the 'space race' between the USA and the former USSR. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the USA military and USA government funded the first telemedicine projects. NASA was keen on building a distant monitoring system to manage the health of American astronauts in space (Sullivan, 2001). Today, due to the technological advancements of communication, several applications and internet based software are already developed to provide health care access to those living in remote areas. Before reviewing the literature related to the recent developments of e-health, it is important to clarify the definition of telemedicine....
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...consideration when looking at the world’s population. With the dawn on the digital revolution, health care practices/methods have been forced to take on a new look, one that is in line with technology to better reach the global society. Even though this poses concerns for developed, developing and less developed countries. Moreover, developed and developing countries they are faced with what is equitable between health and healthcare while less developed countries, they are faced with little to no electricity which results in poor lighting and inadequate communication and are forced to treat patients without past medical records. The problem stems from “a lack of coherence in global health governance, which leads to the impossibility of effective representation throughout the globe.” (Zalzala et al. 629-632) This is a major problem when dealing with the global society as health for on a global scale cannot be addressed from the perspective of one nation, it needs to come from several nations working together to achieve a set goal. Because problems in one nation might severely differ from the other due to climate, culture and the nature of the people who live in that specific nation. Currently, there is not standing plan or strategic vision to combat this global health crisis and no one person is capable but a select few really care about the global society. For example: Doctors Without Borders, an organization that aids countries who have been affect by crisis such as; natural...
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...BRIEF COMMUNICATION Clinical Telehealth Across the Disciplines: Lessons Learned Sandra Jarvis-Selinger, Ph.D.,1,2 Elmira Chan, M.Ed.,2 Ryan Payne, B.A.,2 Kerenza Plohman, LLM,2 and Kendall Ho, M.D., FRCPSC2,3 cost and remuneration issues, development of organizational protocols for system use, and strategies to promote interprofessional collaboration). 1 Department of Surgery, 2Division of Continuing Professional Development and Knowledge Translation, 3Division of Emergency Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Key words: clinical telehealth, videoconferencing, literature review, quality of service Introduction Abstract Videoconferencing technologies can vastly expand the reach of healthcare practitioners by providing patients (particularly those in rural/remote areas) with unprecedented access to services. While this represents a fundamental shift in the way that healthcare professionals care for their patients, very little is known about the impact of these technologies on clinical workflow practices and interprofessional collaboration. In order to better understand this, we have conducted a focused literature review, with the aim of providing policymakers, administrators, and healthcare professionals with an evidence-based foundation for decision-making. A total of 397 articles focused on videoconferencing in clinical contexts were retrieved, with 225 used to produce this literature review. Literature in the fields...
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...Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000 Investigation of Factors Affecting Healthcare Organization’s Adoption of Telemedicine Technology Paul Jen-Hwa Hu University of South Florida Patrick Y.K. Chau University of Hong Kong Olivia R. Liu Sheng University of Arizona Abstract Recent advances in information and biomedicine technology have significantly increased the technical feasibility, clinical viability and economic affordability of telemedicine-assisted service collaboration and delivery. The ultimate success of telemedicine in an adopting organization requires the organization’s proper addressing both technological and managerial challenges. Based on Tornatzky and Fleischer’s framework, we developed and empirically evaluated a research model for healthcare organizations’ adoption of telemedicine technology, using a survey study that involved public healthcare organizations in Hong Kong. Results of our exploratory study suggested that the research model exhibited reasonable significance and classification accuracy and that collective attitude of medical staff and perceived service risks were the two most significant factors in organizational adoption of telemedicine technology. Furthermore, several implications for telemedicine management emerged from our study and are discussed as well 1. Introduction Telemedicine is essentially about use of information and biomedicine technology to support, facilitate or improve collaboration and delivery of healthcare...
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...home get the information from that visit? Health information recorded in paper format makes these tasks very hard, if not impossible. Luckily, there is a growing movement to transform that, using information management and information technology. The use of this type of equipment allows for "high-quality, safe, and competent care. Society today is constantly changing. Society changes jobs, location of residence, and doctors often. While society speaks of a medical structure American medicine is disorganized: it lacks standards, measures, and the ability to exchange information that constitutes a true structure. The medical industry has taken to every kind of clinical technology; from digital thermometers to CT scanners. However, the implementation of information management and information technology in the medical industry falls behind the rest of our economy. Health informatics is best described as the position where information science, medicine, and healthcare all meet. It encompasses the resources, devices, and methods required to enhance the development, storage, retrieval, and the use of information in health and biomedicine. Health informatics incorporates tools such as computers clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and information management and information technology....
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...Telemedicine: An Important Force in the Transformation of Healthcare 1. Introduction As we enter the new decade, healthcare for an aging population is a top-of-mind issue for government policy makers, business leaders and consumers alike. Healthcare costs have been steadily increasing, and a growing number of healthcare providers and patients worry that the recent budget crunches faced by healthcare providers will affect patient care in the years ahead. Healthcare providers are taking advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funding to launch telehealth initiatives to face down some of healthcare’s most daunting challenges. According to the American Telemedicine Association: "Telemedicine is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients' health status. Closely associated with telemedicine is the term 'telehealth,' which is often used to encompass a broader definition of remote health care that does not always involve clinical services. Videoconferencing, transmission of still images, e-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical education and nursing call centers are all considered part of telemedicine and telehealth." Following decades of media attention focused on the potential for telemedicine to transform health care delivery, the technology has matured, as has the acceptance of its use among providers and payers. ...
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...Future Trends in Health Care Future Trends in Health Care The use of a telemedicine can be incorporated in any electronic health record system, with the proper applications patient can be seen face-to-face or in person with a documented assessment or evaluation being conducted simultaneously. The important use of telemedicine is to increase productivity however, many health care professionals can evaluate just as many patient via EHR as they can in person without the use of an EHR. According to the Journal of American Medicine Association, “the role of telemedicine in medical practice is yet to be defined. Even now, it ranges from simple teleconference (a means of communication) to remote surgery (a new modality).” (JAMA, 1995) The EHR (Electronic Health Record) is an electronic record of a patient’s health information that can be generated by one or more departments in the health care delivery system. The health record includes patient address, phone numbers, religion, ethnicity, history and physical, lab tests, lab results and progress notes of their medical information over a period of time. “The EHR has the ability to generate a complete record of a clinical patient encounter-as well as supporting other care-related activities directly or indirectly via interface- including evidence-based decision support, quality management, and outcomes reporting.” (HIMSS, 2009) The EHR main goals should be to help guide the health professional to...
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...then present her marketing plan it to the executive committee for review. The overall problem she is faced with is to decided on how SaskTel will manage its distribution and promotional decisions as well as conducting financial analysis to visualize the product’s profit potential. 2. Situational Analysis a. Strengths: Expertise in Communication: SaskTel has been operating for roughly 100 years specializing in the telecommunications industry, providing their customers with voice, data and dial-up high-speed Internet, web hosting, text messaging, cellular, wireless, etc. If SaskTel were to utilize their prior knowledge about telecommunications, they would be able to gain a competitive advantage in the up and coming market for telemedicine. Popularity/Familiarity with Consumers: SaskTel is already offering a wide range of telecommunication support for Saskatchewan citizens. The Saskatchewanian people have already built...
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...................................................... Keynote presentation Q Telemedicine support for the developing world Richard Wootton Centre for Online Health, University of Queensland, Australia Summary Telemedicine has been used for some years in the industrialized world, albeit with rather mixed success. There is also a considerable literature on the potential use of telemedicine for the developing world. However, there are few reports of the actual use of telemedicine there. A review identified five telemedicine networks providing second opinions; each network had been in operation for over five years. Although they have different aims and methods of operation, they exhibit some common features. In particular, none of them appear to be dealing with markedly increasing referral rates. Rough calculations suggest that only about 0.1% of the potential telemedicine demand from the developing world is being met. Possible reasons include the referrers being too busy and a perceived loss of control. If this analysis is correct, then the right strategy for future telemedicine in developing countries will be to concentrate on the construction of within-country networks that demonstrably alter health outcomes, can be shown to be cost-effective and sustainable, and will provide a model for other countries to copy. .............................................................. Telemedicine has been used in the industrialized world for some years, albeit with rather patchy...
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...Acronyms used AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ART Antiretroviral Therapy ARVs Antiretrovirals BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BCC Behaviour Change Communication CFSC Communication for Social Change CSO Civil Society Organisation DFID Department for International Development FAO UN Food and Agricultural Organisation FBOs Faith Based Organisations FHI Family Health International GFATM Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria HDR Human Development Report HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus ICTs Information and communication technologies IEC Information, Education and Communication MAP Multi-country AIDS Programme MDGs Millennium Development Goals NGO Non-governmental Organisation PLWHA People living with HIV and AIDS PMTCT Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission STI Sexually Transmitted Infection TAC Treatment Action Campaign UNAIDS Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS UNESCO UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation USAID United States Agency for International Development VCT Voluntary Counselling and Testing WHO World Health Organization WTO World Trade Organization INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background In developing countries, preventable diseases and premature deaths still inflict a high toll. Inequity of access to basic health services affects distinct regions, communities, and social groups. Under-financing of the health sector in most countries has led to...
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