Telemedicine has yielded triumphs in patient care, aspirations for future applications, and frustrations with lingering limitations.
All were evident at the 2016 American Telemedicine Association conference, which wrapped up yesterday in Minneapolis. The consensus: The industry has come far in the 23 years since the ATA was founded, and continues to evolve.
A researcher from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, spoke about how her team used telemedicine to help save the lives of critically ill newborns. Another, from the University of California, San Francisco, discussed how asynchronous telemedicine helped providers track the progress of at-home physical therapy for knee replacement patients.
A hospital system administrator showed how the technology has made life easier for adults living with multiple chronic illnesses, reducing the cycle of doctor visits through staff collaboration and medication management.
That administrator, Deborah Dahl of Banner Health in Phoenix, also disabused attendees of the notion that older people are uncomfortable with technology. Grandma is Skyping, after all, and given a simple touchscreen, will happily engage with medical providers, she said. Dahl also won an ATA industry leader award for her work in patient care innovation.
A University of Pittsburgh researcher discussed how telerehabilitation software that he developed helped parents boost the their children’s at-home speech and language learning. Other researchers are using the VISYTER software in different clinical studies, including one that employs a multi-angle camera to assess adults with autism.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Dahl and Dr. Jennifer Fang, a fellow in neonatal and perinatal medicine at Mayo Clinic, also revealed how telemedicine saved millions of dollars for their health systems.
Even within the confines of a conference, however, the news can intrude. Researched published by JAMA Dermatology on the gathering’s first day revealed misdiagnoses and substandard care in the growing field of teledermatology. A Wall Street Journal story on the study incited cries of foul and a strident demand for industry accountability.
A smattering of presenters and attendees complained about difficulties with connectedness impairing their telemedical research. This frustration led the Mayo newborn researchers to abandon the wireless, tablet-based, video-conferencing software they used for most of their three-year study because of poor connectivity and unreliability of the wireless system. They defaulted to a cart-based, hard-wired solution that offered significant advantages but was also cumbersome for medical teams working on their tiny patients.
The conference also saw a pioneer in the spread of technology blast capitalism for preventing free Internet access and, by extension, better health worldwide through telemedicine. Nicholas Negroponte showed attendees how some of today’s technological marvels had their roots in the 1960s, when he began teaching at MIT. One project, a precursor to Google Earth, was considered so outlandish that U.S. Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) gave it one of his storied Golden Fleece awards for wasting taxpayer money.
Photo: Twitter user Polycom
