As telemedicine, telehealth and telecare providers get sucked along in the updraft of the digital trend in health care provision, the provocative conference report and the many comments that have become appended to this E-Health Insider Primary Care item may interest many Telecare Aware readers.
An interesting story on the use of information on MP3 players for people with asthma to listen to when an attack threatens. However, is calling it ‘Telecare for Asthma’ stretching the definition of telecare too far? Do leave a comment on the terminology.
Actually, a highly readable account of a robot experiment from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. It attempts to answer the question ‘Why use a [rather limited] robot?’
Would promoting telemedicine and e-health across the continent of Africa interest your company? There is a website development and promotion sponsorship opportunity available. Please email me if interested.
The use of telemed technology in the Bond films was down to a Scottish doctor and his team:
Mr Ferguson said: “We thought: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if James Bond fell ill and took telemedicine advice from us here in Aberdeen?’ So we sat down and wrote an outline of a story where Bond gets poisoned and, using remote monitoring and video conferencing technology, his life is saved. We sent the outline off to the Bond producers and the next thing it was sent to the writers and they used it.”
The enterprising team have since been hired by the film company to to provide remote medicine services to the cast and crew of the movie series. Nice one.
Here are five good items that present general perspectives. On other weeks each would rate a separate Telecare Aware entry. If you haven’t time to read them all, give the Quicksilva and Economist articles a whirl.
The AT&T Center for Telehealth Research and Policy at the University of Texas and the Centre for Information Technology & Leadership (CITL) has released a study estimating the cost-benefit of telehealth to the US health system. ‘The savings estimates assume a combination of ’store-and-forward’ technologies that involve transmission and interpretation of medical data with ‘real-time video’ consultations involving a patient and one or more physicians.’ Download the report from this Telehealth Canada item.
Following my passing comment about Google Health last week, I thought you might be interested to watch this 50 minute video of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt addressing the HIMSS conference in February. Amongst other interesting things, he points out how slowly doctors are realising what impact the internet is having - and will have - on healthcare delivery, and what Google is trying to do about it. (Google also likes the ‘predict and prevent’ approach.)
The video includes a demo of Google Health and its potential for linking to other systems. I predict that remote health monitoring companies that get in early to link their health monitoring systems are going to have a huge advantage.
A reminder from the National Telehealth Center, University of the Philippines, Manila that not all developments are happening in the ‘West’. Read item.
I’ve been generally keeping away from Google Health stories as the issues are well covered in the US-focused and highly recommended blog e-CareManagement. However, this link up between Google-hosted health records and a diagnostic test and record provider (read press release) should be giving telehealth providers food for thought. A pointer to the future, maybe?
Unfortunately, according to the Royal Society of Medicine’s website, there are now no places available for this event on Friday 30 May in London, but readers may like to download the programme to see who is speaking about what (speaker biographies included). There is also business case advice on the iTelecare website.
If you fancy a trip to ‘the world’s northernmost city’, consider the Telemedicine and eHealth Conference 2008, to be held in Tromsø, Norway 9 to 11 June. Details here.
