OTN
![]() | If you see a guy holding a white hockey puck to his forehead, that’ll be Jesse Hirsh. If you see a guy checking his heart rate on his watch, that’ll be Ed Brown.
At OTN’s fabulously successful March 30 Hackathon, Jesse interviewed Ed about the future of connected, virtual health care. The first topic on the agenda was the engaged patient. That segued rather quickly to comparisons of personal health monitoring devices. Jesse showed the audience his Scanadu Scout. It looks like a hockey puck and measures blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and blood oxygen levels, sending the data to your iPhone. Ed, who has a Peak Basis watch that monitors heart rate, among other things, pulled out his smart phone, calling it the... |
![]() | I’ve had jobs that made me cry – don’t ask – but this may be the first time I’ve had a job that caused me to make other people cry.
With a lot of help from other team members, I make videos and write stories about Telehomecare. I talk to patients and their family caregivers, their nurses or respiratory therapists and doctors. From time to time, we visit patients in their homes. That’s where Telehomecare connects them with a clinician who monitors their vital signs remotely and coaches them about how to live their best possible life.
Then we tell their stories on screen, in news stories and on our web site so that people – and health care providers – learn about the program and how it can... |
In December 2014, The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) reviewed and updated their Telemedicine policy, providing clarity on general expectations for telemedicine and specific expectations for practicing telemedicine across borders. I had the privilege of being part of the working group that developed the policy, along with CPSO Council, staff, and other external experts. For more than a year, the working group met regularly and took an in-depth review of the state of telemedicine around the world, including the positions and policies of other Colleges, provinces, territories, as well as international positions in other countries like the US,... | |
Who could have imagined, even a few years ago, that holding a fingertip to your mobile phone screen would tell you your blood pressure? Yet, today, you can buy any one of a number of apps that does just that.
There’s only one problem. You’re most likely not getting an accurate blood pressure reading.
“Not ready for prime time,” is how Dr. Nilay Kumar described the technology to Reuters Health last month. Kumar is an attending physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Mass., and a Harvard Medical School instructor. He’s lead author on a study that analyzed the top 107 apps for “hypertension” and “high blood pressure”. Most – about 75 per cent – were found to... | |
Here are some tips and friendly reminders when making use of OTN’s Webcasting service if you’re the Organizer, Presenter, and/or Participant:
Place a sign for use outside the door of the Telemedicine Studio or room when a videoconference session is under way. The sign might read "Session in progress, please do not disturb." You can also order up to five door hangers from OTN.
"Mic-off" setting should be enabled prior to and at the conclusion of your session.
Always confirm that you have the correct system number before dialing a participant site.
Practice good etiquette by doing roll-call and introducing everyone... | |
OTN, with the Centre of Effective Practice, is pleased to present “Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety” - a three-part educational workshop series. The program, designed by leading experts from Sunnybrook’s Fredrick W. Thompson Anxiety Disorders Centre including world-renowned psychiatrist and lecturer Dr. Peggy Richter, is back by popular demand after receiving rave reviews from an OTN audience last year.
Here’s what a few participants from 2014 had to say...
We have very much benefited from this series and will be following up internally on our practice and processes in this regard.
Thank you very much for this highly informative, concise and well organized series.
We enjoyed the sessions very much.... | |
What a year it’s been for Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN)!
With all the hard work, dedication and passion our partners and employees have devoted to delivering innovative telemedicine solutions, it comes to no surprise that telemedicine continues to grow both in scope and adoption. Last year alone, OTN supported more than 390,000 patient consultations, working with 1,300 healthcare organizations and more than 8,000 healthcare providers in 1,748 sites across Ontario. As a result, almost 260 million kilometers of patient travel was avoided. That represents nearly 330 trips to the moon and back!
Telemedicine is truly transforming our healthcare system with a new model of care delivery – one that improves access, increases... | |
The next frontier for a sustainable health system is home and community care, according to Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins. At the recent Health Quality Ontario Transformation conference, Minister Hoskins talked about the need for a patient- and family-centred health system.
Minister at #HQT2014 states next frontier is home & community health. @OTNtelemedicine Telehomecare can help us achieve this.
— Angela Nickoloff (@2rhods) November 20, 2014
At OTN, we’re... | |
![]() | The rate of change in the digital world is nothing short of dazzling. The way we work, communicate and collaborate continues to evolve with new services and applications being introduced every day.
So it gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of the OTNhub, the new one-stop telemedicine service that delivers enhanced convenience and functionality to Ontario’s healthcare providers.
When the integration of OTN services is fully completed in the near future, the OTNhub will allow Primary Care Providers, Specialty Care Providers (specialists and allied health providers) and Healthcare Organizations to access all services relevant to them with a single sign-in. From... |
What do playing Monopoly, driving a car, and baking cupcakes have in common? They all have rules to be followed. Generally, rules aim to ensure fairness, protect from harm, and instruct on how best to do something.
As a regulatory body, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) maintains a set of rules, in the form of policies, to guide physicians on how best to provide patient care. The CPSO revises these polices from time to time, with input from key stakeholders. This past July and August, the CPSO held a public consultation on draft revisions to its Telemedicine policy.
Given our extensive expertise in telemedicine, OTN submitted a response to this where we proposed changes to the Telemedicine policy that will help... | |
OTN est un organisme indépendant à but
non lucratif, qui est financé par
le Gouvernement de l’Ontario.