Healthcare
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by Lee Toop,
Imagine a scenario where an industrial worker at an isolated mine site in the far North needs to see a doctor for treatment of a malady of some sort. The only options for seeing a doctor face-to-face are a long drive or a costly flight - so instead the worker stays on site for the consultation. An on-site nurse ushers him into a small private booth where a doctor’s image is on a video screen - and thousands of miles away, his image appears on the doctor’s screen. This might seem futuristic, but the concept of telemedicine has been developed to a point where medical professionals are finding it very effective for a range of consultations. Developed out of business teleconferencing systems, the use of high-quality video and audio connections to bring patients and medical professionals together over long distances is growing in popularity around the world.
"The concept of telepresence has been around for a few years now in the business market, enabling high-definition life-size face-to-face audio and video telecommunications," said Brantz Myers, director of healthcare business development for Cisco Canada.
Telepresence in business means putting monitors around a boardroom table that each connect to a remote user, bringing as many people as are required to speak "face-to-face" through video and audio connections. "For the first few minutes you’re impressed by the technology, then you get into an immersive discussion like you would face-to-face. We’ve been able to mitigate hundreds of millions of dollars in airplane travel with this technology," Myers explained.
Canada has already been a leader in the development of telemedicine, Myers noted, with Ontario having an extensive network built using Cisco technologies. "Ontario telemedicine is one of the most active and highest-used networks on the planet. That’s not surprising, given the size of the province and the vast areas of low population we have in the North along with the obligation to provide equal healthcare to all Canadians," Myers said. "The focus there has been to securely enable face-to-face meetings between patients and clinicians, as well as specialist to clinician, and make them easier." The use of such a network to offer specific programs can be a life-saver in many ways, he noted. Ontario has a program in place for treatment of people suffering strokes that reduces the time to treatment. Normally, a patient suffering from a stroke in an isolated community would have to be flown to a larger centre for assessment; through the telemedicine network they can be assessed remotely and faster treatment arranged for those cases where the use of an anticoagulant or other drug therapy is required.
While these networks are effective, Cisco has been working to take them another step forward, bringing a number of technologies together to create a self-contained product called HealthPresence.
The HealthPresence product combines high-quality audio and video with other medical technology to make connecting with a doctor easier for patients, no matter where they might be.
"We’ve taken the technology and put it in a hut, something that looks like a photo booth you might find in a train station. Typically, you’ll have a healthcare professional such as a nurse practitioner who will join the patient, and you’d have a face-to-face consultation with a general practitioner or specialist," Myers described.
The "health pod" is equipped with typical doctor’s office equipment such as blood pressure cuffs, scales, otoscopes, and others, but features a large video screen to display the doctor’s image at full size. A camera broadcasts the patient’s image back to the doctor’s office, and a secure connection transmits biometric information gathered by the various medical devices to a second computer screen on the doctor’s desk. With high-resolution cameras to look at specific wounds and the high-quality video connection, the doctor can make an assessment of the patient that is similar to what might be determined through a face-to-face contact and prescribe a remedy immediately.
Cisco and Molina Healthcare announce transformative telemedicine pilot program for underserved and underinsured communities
Cisco recently announced a ground-breaking telemedicine pilot program initiative with Molina Healthcare, two community health centres in San Diego, and the state of California to provide health and wellness services to underserved communities throughout the state. More than 15 sites will be equipped to deliver telemedicine primary and specialty care services using Cisco HealthPresence, a care-at-a-distance technology solution that combines state-of-the-art video, audio, and medical information to create a patient care experience similar to the common medical encounter when patients visit their healthcare providers. As part of this program, Cisco is contributing $10 million of product, services and support.
"California is already a world leader in technology, so it makes sense that we also lead the way in applying technology to healthcare. We have been laying the groundwork for years with our Broadband Task Force and Telehealth Network and we are beginning to see fantastic results, including greater access to quality medical care throughout the state. What Cisco is doing here with the latest in high-tech approaches and communication is the future of medicine and we are very excited to see such innovative partners work to expand telemedicine connections and medical care in California," said Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor, State of California.
Pilot projects using HealthPresence pods were conducted in Scotland and California, with strong results; 85 percent of participating medical professionals said they would be completely confident about using the system, while 99 percent of patients were satisfied. Anecdotal evidence shows that telemedicine benefits both sides of the patient-doctor connection; in Ontario, the most popular use of the system is for psychiatry. Doctors have said they appreciate the added nonverbal communication that they receive through the high-definition video link. Patients in Scotland rated telepresence consultations higher than a regular in-person doctor’s visit, as they felt they had the doctor’s attention more specifically during that visit Audio, video and data connections are run mostly over a satellite link, Myers noted.
"We’ve successfully tested telepresence over satellite links, with the intention of being able to support rural communities. With the bandwidth available through reasonably-priced satellite connections, we’re able to provide the high-definition live experience," he said. Wireless internet networks being installed in many parts of the country are starting to reach the levels at which telemedicine could run over them, he added.
Target locations for the HealthPresence system are mostly small communities that are underserved for healthcare, Myers said. Aboriginal communities are also being targeted.
"There are about 700 Aboriginal communities where we see opportunities for this device," he said. "Then we’re looking at places that might be remote but not desolate - for example, a military base, or a ship at sea. There are so many places where these could be placed in mobile settings. In the United States, one group is putting them on trucks and taking them into remote areas… such as the sparsely populated sections of North Dakota or New Mexico." Even in urban areas, the use of HealthPresence could be beneficial, Myers noted.
"With our aging population, we see a great opportunity to bring better access to high-quality healthcare right down to the corner of a neighbourhood, perhaps a location where there is a large population of seniors but not a lot of healthcare access," he said. In future, the technology might even be able to function in a home setting.
With HealthPresence set to launch on a wider scale in 2010, Myers said he has some expectations to go along with it.
"I expect to see better access to high-quality healthcare and lower costs to the system. Today there are a lot of costs around travel, not only in dollar costs but the time and risk of traveling in winter conditions," he said. "With an aging population, we need more of this tool set, and the need will only grow."
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