May 3, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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The Boise, Idaho-based Saint Alphonsus Health System has developed multiple applications for telemedicine among its four-hospital, 714-bed integrated healthcare system that have, as of January this year, saved the system $1.7 million in medical transport (life flight or ambulance) costs and has allowed more patients to be treated in their local communities.
April 27, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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Since April 2009, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) health system has facilitated more than 4,000 electronic visits (eVisits), and even more importantly, has engaged four different payers to reimburse for this electronic service. This eVisit program earned the 20-hospital UPMC health system in western Pennsylvania a finalist award in the Healthcare Informatics IT Innovator Awards that was presented at this year’s Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference in Las Vegas.
April 24, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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To improve the level of emergency care provided to children presenting to rural and underserved hospitals in Northern California, the University of California Davis Children’s Hospital (UCDCH) has created a pediatric telemedicine program. Even though this program has a relatively low volume of patients, it has provided high impact services and high satisfaction scores from family members.
April 20, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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Earlier this month I had a conversation with Gary Capistrant, senior director, public policy, American Telemedicine Association, and he brought up a really interesting point relating military servicemembers and telehealth, and it got me thinking what really needs to happen to get more widespread adoption of telemedicine. Gary and I were discussing what’s important for CIOs, CTOs, and CMIOs when they’re purchasing telemedicine hardware, and he mentioned how servicemembers, who are increasingly using Skype and other Internet calling services to speak to their family and friends while deployed, are also expecting to use those same technologies to serve their healthcare needs when they return stateside.
April 19, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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HEALTHeLINK, the Buffalo-based Beacon Community, has had early successes with its diabetes telemonitoring pilot that identifies high-risk patients through mobile monitoring before they are hospitalized. The pilot, which has enlisted local home health agencies to help monitor patients without flooding physicians with data, has seen both physician and patient satisfaction.
April 9, 2012
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.....only clinician involvement can orchestrates the process by which clinicians are “integrated” in the process of delivery of quality-centered care. An obstructionist clinician team can derail an otherwise successful HIT adoption project and/or your EHR application implementation.
April 9, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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Before the Arkansas START (System To Access Rural Telecolposcopy) program began offering telecolposcopy through rural clinics, thousands of women were either delaying important gynecological treatment or simply going without. Telemedicine projects like these are contributing to a growing telehospital/clinic market, which was worth $8.1 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $17.6 billion in 2016, according to BCC Research (Wellesley, Mass.).
March 27, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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In a recent webinar about payer trends in HIT, I found the Gary Austin’s perspectives to be very refreshing. Not only did he urge payers to embrace technology for their consumer initiatives, but he also advocated they underwrite health information exchanges (HIEs), which many in the industry have been saying for a while now.
March 23, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
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During an eHealth Initiative webinar, “The Use of Telemedicine within an HIE for Chronic Disease Management,” on Feb. 29, much was said about what was holding telemedicine back and what could push it forward. One sign of encouragement that was voiced was that grant-funded telehealth networks could help build the backbone of health information exchange throughout the country.
March 22, 2012 John DeGaspari
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Fairview Health Services, a 10-hospital, 42-clinic health system based in Minneapolis, has implemented a cloud-based communications platform that, among other things, allows its physicians to conduct virtual video “visits” with their patients, and schedule follow-up video visits.
January 5, 2012 John DeGaspari
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With all of the attention being given to healthcare reform, meaningful use and looming deadlines for ICD-10, hospital CIOs have more than enough on their plates already. But I think secure messaging, particularly between physicians and their patients, is worthy of attention.
June 20, 2011 Mark Hagland
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At the 20-hospital University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) integrated health system in western Pennsylvania, clinician leaders are moving forward on multiple fronts to make leading-edge telemedicine a reality.
