FEATURE EDITORIAL
Heritage Publishing, Inc. © 2012
DIGITAL DOC “Before things became so busy, doctors would meet up with
each other and discuss a case; it was a very collegial environment,” Orr says.
Hectic schedules and the way data is distributed between
clinics and hospitals are just some of the barriers to the smooth flow of information between doctors themselves, Orr says.
“In the future we’ll reclaim some of what we’ve lost. We’ll see a time when telemedicine helps to reunite doctors.”
Websites Primarily used as a marketing tool, any entity doing business
in the new millennium would be lost in a sea of competition without a Web presence.
“It’s expected by any patient that’s technologically Photo Courtesy of Parrish Medical Center In April 2010, Mayo Clinic launched a pilot program to expand
neurological expertise in remote areas throughout the state of Florida. Using a remote-presence robot, designed by InTouch Health, patients who enter Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, Fla. exhibiting the signs of a stroke are instantly connected to a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.
The neurologist controls the robot using a laptop computer
that is equipped with a joystick and headset. With this equipment, the neurologist can see, hear and speak to everyone in the room. The neurologist can zoom in on monitoring equipment to read vital signs and can even move around the room as if he or she were there.
“It’s the most amazing thing to watch the robot moving down
the hallway by itself,” says Kathie Coon, a communications specialist at Parrish Medical Center.
Since neurology as a medical specialty is in short supply
throughout the country, this type of program can be crucial for rural community hospitals.
“It’s really about expertise and availability,” says Dr. Francisco
Garcia, chief of emergency medicine at Parrish Medical Center. “We’ve got a bunch of neurologists who are stroke experts that a community hospital could probably never get, and we’ve got them available 24/7.”
Since the technology was introduced in 2010, Mayo Clinic
neurologists have been consulted in more than 200 cases via the remote-presence robot.
“We’ve had several really, really great saves, since we’ve had
this program,” Garcia says. “It’s not only saved lives, it’s saved quality of life.”
In addition to telestroke programs, hospitals have had some
success with programs that provide remote psychiatric expertise and the remote expertise of an intensivist for patients in ICU.
Dr. Sean Orr sees some potential for telemedicine to broaden
beyond the treatment of patients and include the facilitation of communication among physicians.
Photo Courtesy of Parrish Medical Center
comfortable,” says Memorial Hospital president and CEO Jim O’Loughlin.
Currently, hospitals and physician practices use websites to
promote their services to the public. Most medical business websites include a list of services provided, a map and directions to the facility, contact numbers, and more recently on hospital websites, average wait times in emergency rooms.
In addition to promotional information, some websites
include administrative features that allow patients to pay their bill online or schedule an appointment.
In the future, hospital websites will become more interactive.
Patients will have the ability to enter demographic information prior to admission into the hospital and to access test results with the appropriate security measures.
“Eventually we’ll have sites where the public can compare
hospitals like an Expedia-type program,” O’Loughlin says. “If somebody’s having a knee surgery, they can find some type of search engine and be able to look at quality, pricing—everything.”
2012-2013 The Greater Daytona Healthcare GuideTM
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