Nationwide telemedicine networks are essential for successful health care reformJune 19, 2009The U.S. healthcare system is in critical need of basic change to enable more equitable, effective, efficient care. Experts in various fields of medicine, public health, and industry propose that telemedicine, or information technology enhanced healthcare, must be a core component of a viable healthcare reform strategy, a view they forcefully present in a white paper published online ahead of print in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. ( www.liebertpub.com), the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association. The white paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/tmj Well-designed telemedicine systems have proven value for improving access to quality healthcare, providing effective clinical decision support and medication prescribing, promoting patient-centered care through community- and home-based resources, enhancing chronic disease management, and promoting adoption of healthy lifestyle choices and self-care, and containing cost inflation. Telemedicine offers substantial benefits that greatly exceed its cost. The white paper, entitled "National Telemedicine Initiatives: Essential to Healthcare Reform," presents a consensus perspective developed by a diverse group of healthcare providers, researchers, academicians, and industry representatives from across the U.S. Lead authors Rashid L. Bashshur, PhD from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Gary W. Shannon, PhD from the University of Kentucky (Lexington), clearly state that, "While not a panacea, telemedicine offers significant opportunities to address the issues of inequities in access to care, cost containment, and quality enhancement." Contributing authors include Elizabeth A. Krupinski, PhD, Jim Grigsby, PhD, Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, Jay H. Sanders, MD, Karen S. Rheuban, MD, Thomas S. Nesbitt, MD, Dale C. Alverson, MD, Ronald C. Merrell, MD, Jonathan D. Linkous, A. Stewart Ferguson, PhD, Robert J. Waters, JD, Max E. Stachura, MD, David G. Ellis, MD, Nina M. Antoniotti, PhD, Barbara Johnston, MSN, Charles R. Doarn, MBA, Peter Yellowlees, MD, Steven Normandin, and Joseph Tracy The authors encourage the continuing effort to make electronic health records (EHRs) universally available, but caution that an exclusive focus on EHRs would result in increased cost without addressing the necessary changes for effective and sustainable healthcare reform. On a broader scale, telemedicine systems will incorporate EHRs as well as a host of other technologies that enable the electronic acquisition, storage, retrieval, and exchange of information "for the purpose of promoting health, preventing disease, treating the sick, managing chronic illness, rehabilitating the disabled, and protecting public health and safety. "Telemedicine is the common element to make reform succeed," says Journal Co-Editor-in-Chief Ronald Merrell, MD, Professor of Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, "Telemedicine involves stunning new technologies that go well beyond just using electronic health records, which can ensure both quality care and cost savings if this technology is widely applied throughout health systems. Telemedicine applications have been tested and proven through years of research and are ready for scalable expansion to serve the entire country and make healthcare reform a reality and a success." Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News |
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| Related Telemedicine Current Events and Telemedicine News Articles Pre-hospital organization: The first links in the chain of survival for heart attack patients Mortality rate following a heart attack has fallen by more than 50% in Europe over the past 25 years. However, because only minor advances in the medical treatment of AMI are expected over the next decade, it is through organisational changes in the pre-hospital phase that mortality rate will continue this decline to below 5%. Internet complicates doctor-patient relationships Patients who ask their doctor about information they have read on the Internet, or webs that better inform them of their diagnosis, are no longer a rarity. Retinopathy of prematurity diagnosis time significantly reduced using telemedicine To be properly diagnosed, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), the leading cause of childhood blindness in the United States and worldwide, requires a time intensive process and significant coordination between ophthalmologist and NICU staff. Telemedicine Expands Reach of Care for Parkinson's Patients A unique and innovative telemedicine project is providing distant nursing home patients with Parkinson's disease access to neurologists at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). Novel biomarkers in heart failure Several new biomarkers have been recently described in Heart Failure (HF) syndrome either in stable chronic patients as in the settings of acute decompensation. Telemedicine may improve care for school children with diabetes Type 1 diabetes is the most common chronic childhood disease. The management of this serious medical condition includes regular fingerstick glucose measurements, multiple daily injections of insulin, and frequent insulin dose adjustments. NASA's electronic nose may provide neurosurgeons with a new weapon against brain cancer An unlikely multidisciplinary scientific collaboration has discovered that an electronic nose developed for air quality monitoring on Space Shuttle Endeavour can also be used to detect odour differences in normal and cancerous brain cells. Telehealth for diabetes promotes aging at home, not in the hospital A large study of ethnically and racially diverse individuals with diabetes has found that home telemonitoring of their health resulted in significantly fewer deaths than in a similar group that was not monitored. Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Telemedicine can dramatically improve child sexual assault examinations in rural areas The use of telemedicine can dramatically improve the quality of child sexual assault examinations in rural communities where rates of abuse and neglect are highest - sometimes more than double the statewide rate - a study published in the January issue of the medical journal Pediatrics has found. The Next Step in Health Care: Telemedicine Imagine a scenario where doctors from different hospitals can collaborate on a surgery without having to actually be in the operating room. What if doctors in remote locations could receive immediate expert support from top specialists in hospitals around the world? More Telemedicine Current Events and Telemedicine News Articles |
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