ATA Telemedicine News Brief

ATA President's Awards and ATA College of Fellows nominations due Wednesday, Feb. 15

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Each year ATA recognizes the leaders in the field of telemedicine through the ATA President's Awards and the ATA College of Fellows. Nominations for honor are now open! If you know someone who deserves to be recognized, please complete the short nomination form. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 15. Award winners and new Fellows will be announced at the ATA 2012 Opening Plenary, Sunday, April 29, in San Jose, Calif.

Free for members: Upcoming ATA Educational webinars in February

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Don't miss the following educational webinars, available for free to all ATA members. Click on any title below for access information. (You will be prompted to sign in using your ATA member ID and password.)

Telemedicine: to China and Back, 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 9, coordinated by the ATA TeleICU Discussion Group
Telehealth Value: The Health Plan's Perspective, 12:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 22, coordinated by the ATA Business & Finance SIG
The Role of Human Factors in Telemedicine, 3:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 29, coordinated by the ATA Human Factors SIG

To see a full list of upcoming educational webinars and other ATA events, check out the ATA's calendar.

New Mexico senator drafting bill to kill telemedicine barriers

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., anticipates introducing a bill this spring to make it easier for physicians to practice telemedicine in many states instead of applying for a separate license for each state. The bill, which is still being drafted, would streamline licensure portability across state lines, according to Fern Goodhart, Udall's legislative assistant. "Telemedicine is medicine, just practiced virtually," she said at a Jan. 31 Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the American Telemedicine Association, which advocates for use of remote medical technologies.

Fort Sanders hospital introduces eastern Tennessee's first telestroke robot

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Thanks to Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center's new telestroke robot, eastern Tennessee stroke patients now will benefit from early consultation with the hospital's stroke experts — regardless of where patients are located across the region. Fort Sanders recently introduced eastern Tennessee's first InTouch RP7 robot, a mobile communications platform that enables stroke patients to receive consults from Fort Sanders' neurologists via its video screen "face."

New system lets doctors watch over Rockford, Ill., ICU patients from afar

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Getting treatment at Rockford Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit now looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. That's because of a new system called tele-health monitoring which helps more patients recover in the ICU. The system basically lets doctors and nurses at an off-site location watch over and teleconference with patients in RMH's ICU when their regular doctor is away in something like surgery.

Nicaragua to introduce telemedicine from Russian cooperation

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Nicaragua will introduce the practice of telemedicine to improve diagnosis and treatment, as well as education for health professionals, with assistance from Russia, a government representative announced. The adviser to President Daniel Ortega for social affairs, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, said that collaboration is part of the agreements signed recently at talks among officials from both governments in Moscow.

HHS reports progress on telehealth regulations

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is making "significant progress" toward new and revised rules that would save the healthcare industry billions of dollars, including ones that will address privileging and credentialing and documentation regulations for both in-person and telemedicine visits, the agency reported. Many of the rules — both proposed and final — increase efficiency and alleviate administrative burdens on physicians, HHS wrote in its most recent update. HHS reported on health IT-related efforts, including a proposed rule that would allow patients to more easily access their clinical lab test results, and two that would affect telemedicine programs.

QNI: Telehealth is not threat to district nurses

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

The Queen's Nursing Institute in the U.K. has launched a new drive to encourage district nurses to make the best use of new communications technology such as telehealth systems. A recently published report by the institute said some district nursing teams already had made significant changes to their practice as a result of new technology but others lagged behind. It acknowledged that this variation in uptake existed because some nurses were worried that devices allowing remote consultations or measurements could damage their relationships with patients, or increase their isolation.

Telecare to help 25,000 people in Birmingham, UK

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Fewer people in Birmingham will face moving into residential care, require hospital admission, or need hands on home care after the rollout of a £14 million ($22.24 million) telecare project across the city, it has been announced. Believed to be the largest citywide deployment of telecare systems in the U.K., the project is expected to help 25,000 patients through technology that allows people with long-term conditions to be remotely monitored from their home.

University of California students launch telehealth pilot for diabetes

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

After more than a year of development, a group of business students at University of California, Merced, are launching the first test of their Valley Telehealth Program. The pilot will focus on women with gestational diabetes in the Central Valley region of the state. Overall diabetes rates there are 9.4 percent, several points above the 7.8 percent average for the rest of the state, according to a report in CaliforniaHealthline.

Telemedicine boosting dermatology care

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

Linking dermatologists to patients in remote areas through telemedicine gives patients more accurate diagnoses and better disease management than they would receive without access to a specialist, says a study in the January Archives of Dermatology. Researchers analyzed data from 1,490 patients who had teledermatology consultations and found that patients received a diagnosis that was different from the referring physician's in 70 percent of cases. In 98 percent of cases, dermatologists recommended changes in the way patients were managing their condition.

Neil Versel: You say mobile, I say wireless, but it doesn't really matter

9 Feb 2012 10:53:49 CDT

It's come up again. "I am studying the wireless healthcare market and wanted to understand if there is any difference between wireless healthcare and mobile healthcare (m-health) market," reads the question on the popular LinkedIn Wireless Health group's message board. Some of the responses are expected, others are, shall we say, interesting.