Telemedicine With Case Study (Paola & Silvana)

8/9/2019 Telemedicine With Case Study (Paola & Silvana)

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Telemedicine

What is Telemedicine?

It is a way to communicate with physicians and medical instructions throughelectronical or digital means. Different telecommunications are used in

telemedicine. Some of this telecommunications are:

Telephone lines

Internet

Satellites

*Note: The telecommunications above are the most common way fortelemedicine. However other transmission media can be used.

It requirements for the use of technology

High resolution and wide screen High resolution Webcam Microphone Speakers Back up of aprox 80 GB

How does telemedicine helps?1. Sends care for patients in their homes and remote areas.

2. Enables doctors collect and transfer media

Types of Telemedicine

1. Real Time: This is the most common type of telemedicine. It consists oflive videos used by providers and specialist.

2. Store and Forward (Asynchronous): If provider and specialist are not

available, they record voice dictations, videos and radiology images if

necessary, which they later send through an email.

3. Home Health Telemedicine: If a patient after a surgery are put under

general observations and due to personal reasons or because theres not


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bed in the hospital they use telemedicine at home. The bandwith used

however, is low and the system use is POTS (Plain Old Telephone

System)

4. To Rural Physicians and Clinics (Spoke Sites): Physicians and clinics

receive education from a specialist.

Where is it mostly used in medicine?1. Cardiology

2. Radiology

3. Psychiatry

4. Oncology.

5. Telemedicine, in some cases helps to make possible telesurgery.

6. Physician anId patient education

7. Conferencing between health providers and medical administrators.

Advantages1. Positive for patient and economy. The patient doesnt has to spend money

in transportation and doesnt have to move from where it is.

2. It avoids physicians and specialist nursing homes and hospitals.

3. Questions can be asked face to face and inmediate treatment is given for

the diagnosis.

4. The specialist actually listens the patient history and health issues, so its

bertter than receiving it from an email. The physician gets a more accurate

and reliable information from the patient.

Disadvantages1. Internet could suddenly fall, so connection might break.

2. If there are no ENT peripherals, there cant be a complete diagnosis done.

3. If the video camera or microphone gets ruin, communication wont be

possible and reliability will decrease.

4. The patient could be lying about its condition just to get medicines from

the doctors.

ENT Peripherals: Gadgets use in telemedicine to check the patient.

Videos of how it works in clinics and hospitalshttp://videos.howstuffworks.com/uc-davis/1705-reaching-rural-hospitals-with-telemedicine-video.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi-vXsSi7fI


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The way telemedicine works :

1- The patient contacts the doctor via video conferencing orteleconferencing

2- He explains his health issues or the symptoms if hes feeling sick

3- The doctor evaluates the medical state of the person

4- He looks at the patients data in his archives and can alter prescribe anymedication to the patient

Examples of Telemedicine in El Salvador

Since December 2003 Laboratorios Lopez, Hospital Benjamin Bloom andInfocentros have done lectures and presentations at least once a month to anaverage of 400 doctors around the country. The lectures about medicaleducation are dine via internet and videoconference .The doctors are all using alaptop where they receive the signal when they can start the presentation.Doctors if needed, can ask questions to the expert which is talking. Everybody


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who is in it can listen to what the other doctors have to say too. The lecture andpresentations takes about an hour they barely have to move from clinics andother hospitals.

Impacts on stakeholders

Patients -Telemedicine has beenused frequently in order to improve theefficiency of pediatric care. Itimproves patient care, cost effective,enhances echocardiogram quality andprevents unnecessary transportation(pediatric cardiology, April 2008)Therefore we can denote that one ofthe impacts is the low cost of service,

people dont have to pay much forbeing part of telemedicine, and also itstops them from having to look fortransport to other hospitals which havethe pediatric cardiologists.It also has an impact on the patientshealth since it has been proved (Pediatric cardiology, April 2008) thattelemedicine increases echocardiogram quality which means that doctors canhave a clearer view of the patients state of heart and depending on that begin anew treatment or keep on the treatment or finish it, depending on the personsstate.

The patients health is also affected by the reliability of telemedicine. Its referredas reliability since the peopleshealth is evaluated by trainedpediatrics which are experiencedand can give better evaluation andconclusions about the patientsstate.Patients are also aloud to cancel ormove their appointments withmuch liberty in case they have anyinconveniency and cannot make it

at the time which the appointmentwas set. Without telemedicinepatients had to travel to the clinic or hospital for having the appointment and ifthey missed it then if affected the rest of the patients and the doctors time.Telemedicine helps the patient since if someday the patient is feeling really weakand sick then they can just realize a video conferencing with the doctor instead oftraveling all the way to clinic/hospital and by this, there is no chance that thepatient could harm himself or other on his way to the clinic due to their state.


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Doctors- Doctors can also be seen as one of the most important stakeholderssince they could really benefit from this technology. It can create an impact ontheir education since they are trained in order to use this type of technology andtherefore they can learn how to use videos, computers, and other technologicequipment. Also their time is affected since they no longer have to waste time

when a patient didnt make it to the appointment because with telemedicine itsmuch easier to re schedule the appointment because they take less time and areeasier to make.

Country /government The country is another stakeholder ( including thegovernment) since if there are uses of new developed technology in the country,then the countries profile develops and looked as if its advancing and slowlydeveloping. Doctors in countries which are given this type of technology , have tobe trained and educated before they use it and therefore, maybe after someyears in the future they could use that education and training that they received,in order to make a much bigger progress on their carrier of doctor and maybedevelop into a better one and earn more opportunities of work. And if there arebetter trained and successful doctors then it means that there is a better medicalassisantance and care of the people and thus the government is positivelyaffected since they are seen as the principal ones which created all of this byintroducing telemedicine.

Ethical Issues

People and machines - People and machines can be seen as an ethical issuewhich would arise from the use of telemedicine since doctors are being trainedand familiarized with new machines and they have to learn how to use and takeadvantage of the opportunities that they are giving in their career.

Reliability - Reliability is also consideredas an ethical issues since withtelemedicine, people in some parts of thecountries are able to keep contact andmake appointments with doctors formother parts of the country which havemore knowledge and capacity to analyzeand evaluate the persons case and stateof health that maybe a doctor in his regiondoesnt have. Therefore if a moreexperienced doctor treats the patient thenhis evaluations and recommendationsand treatment are going to be morereliable than from an inexperienced doctor.


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Relating telemedicine to case study

Village A already has phone line and internet so in order to make possibletelemedicine, village B and C, which we know by the case study (line 47 53),

village b doesnt has internet and village C also doesnt has, these two, shouldget at least a phone line or internet connection. By the case study (line 65), weknow there were problems with communication between clinics, IT systems andvillages, so with these changes, the clinics will be able to communicate foreducational medical purposes and they will also have the facility to transferinformation about the health of a patient needed. All three villages once theyhave gotten the requirements for using telemedicine, are going to benefitthemselves a lot because Dr Ogola will have the facility to communicate betweenthe clinics and give the patients a much more reliable treatment , and therewouldnt be any need of transportation, as (line 55 57) mentions if a case istoo complicated or cannot be addressed in the local clinics, the patient is referred

to the hospital., so transportation is complicated to get and affects patientshealth. Also doctors from villages can be taught and be educated on how to usethis technology, therefore they are also going to become more familiarized withIT, and the benefits it gives to humans.

Overall, if the clinics decides to get either phone lines or internet, the best wouldbe to get internet as a priority because with internet there can be videointeraction which this is not possible with phone lines, so this can help clinicsknow how to go through a surgery procedure if necessary.


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Documents

Telemedicine With Case Study (Paola & Silvana)