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Written by Stewart Stein
on September 16, 2013
Not long ago, my wife and I took a road trip to Montreal from Toronto. I take highway driving "seriously" and was very focused on the road. It was a beautiful day and we drove along watching the scenery roll by in a blissful contemplative silence…or so I thought. When we hit Kingston my wife couldn't contain herself anymore, "What’s with you?! You haven’t said a word!". Clearly we had different expectations of my driverly duties.
I have had the opportunity to speak with many of the dermatologists participating in OTN’s TeledermSF program. Trust me, I’m not suggesting that any of the derms are in anyway approaching any kind of acrimony that I managed to achieve with my driving partner.... | |
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Written by Rob Williams
on September 4, 2013
Back in 2007 OTN’s primary focus was extending telemedicine – in the form of real-time videoconferencing – beyond hospitals, but we were also examining how to expand our program offerings. “Store forward” – an application that allows information to be sent to a secure server where it can be downloaded at another time – had been used for years in the United States, in particular, at Veterans Affairs and the Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN). There were also a number of papers and presentations delivered at ATA on store forward use in dermatology. OTN decided to... | |
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Written by Rob Williams
on August 27, 2013
As I discussed in my previous post, Telemedicine has a variety of applications. Telemedicine also delivers significant benefits for GPs. For example, Otn.teledermSF is a service that enables a referring doctor to consult quickly with a dermatologist anywhere in Ontario. A photograph of a patient’s skin condition, plus pertinent health information, is sent by the GP or RN at the office for review by the specialist, who assesses the information and provides a treatment plan, generally in less than five days. For the patient, wait time is shortened, costs are reduced and inconvenience is lessened. For the GP, a treatment path... | |
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Written by Rob Williams
on August 27, 2013
As I discussed in my previous post, Telemedicine has a variety of applications. Telemedicine also delivers significant benefits for GPs. For example, Otn.teledermSF is a service that enables a referring doctor to consult quickly with a dermatologist anywhere in Ontario. A photograph of a patient’s skin condition, plus pertinent health information, is sent by the GP or RN at the office for review by the specialist, who assesses the information and provides a treatment plan, generally in less than five days. For the patient, wait time is shortened, costs are reduced and inconvenience is lessened. For the GP, a treatment path... | |
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Written by Rob Williams
on August 27, 2013
In my previous post on the ways OTN is linking the healthcare community in Ontario, I reviewed how the Northeast Cancer Centre (NCC) is using virtual care to improve both the patient and physician experience. Here are a few more examples of telemedicine in action:
Neurotrauma follow-up: A patient in a remote community with post-injury epilepsy, cognitive impairments and mobility issues travelled alone every few months to Toronto for follow-up consultations with a neurologist. Anxiety related to travel and the disruption of the patient’s routine interfered with the progress and success of his recovery. When his follow-up appointments with... | |
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Written by Rob Williams
on August 27, 2013
Telemedicine, the provision of health care by means of telecommunications and information technology, is a reality in Ontario. In the fiscal year 2012-13, more than 300,000 patients received care through telemedicine, a 51% increase over 2011-12.
From April 1998, when Ontario’s first telemedicine sites launched at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Timmins and District, Kirkland and District and the then Lady Minto hospitals, OTN has grown to more than 100 sites across the province. Geography has been eliminated as a barrier for many patients in Ontario.
An Introduction to Telemedicine
What telemedicine practitioners who have shared their clinical experiences with me helped me realized is that “telemedicine is not a service -... | |
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