Argentira will sign an agree with University of San Diego for to do telemedicine sessions.

The agreement signed between Argentina and the University of San Diego allow that patients in the country can access the best treatments using the possibilities that technological advances make it easy. a Tumor Committee composed of experts from Argentina and US analyze each particular case, and from international treatment guidelines, will decide in conjunction with the patient the best treatment. Also professional did a training, encouraging the rotation of Argentine experts at UCSD and UCSD professionals in our country, which will help both in learning new techniques and innovative treatments from the US and in enrolling patients in clinical studies in international protocols.

Technological advances in videoconferencing, like telepresence, improve exponentially accessibility, this systems use communication standards and reduce bandwidth use, which is easier to use anywhere. Allow the interconnection of any device, anywhere, whether at the office of a specialist, a hospital consulting, home of a patient, a computer, a tablet, etc. .. They improve quality of care for various reasons, one image quality is HD, two it allows to patient access to a specialist worldwide through a consultation on-line, three it allows participation of all stakeholders in the consultation, patient, doctor, primary care physician, physician interconsultado and family, and finally looks to be several highly qualified professionals, it decreases the amount of errors. But also they reduce transport costs and trips with not only they cause direct savings to the patient, but an indirect whole society as reducing fuel use and reduce environmental pollution associated with trips.

This agreement also involves surgery or development in robotics, an emerging technology that allows advanced laparoscopic procedures that are having great results because it reduces operative time and morbidity.At a time like the present where the financial and economic crisis gripping the governments of many countries and where their leaders are only possible cuts in healthcare. We'd like to break a lance for telemedicine and encourage these leaders to analize the advantages of this type of material and the potential benefits to the system. Clearly, if you do not have this technology you have to make an investment in procurement, but what makes something profitable is not the initial expense, but the benefits that subsequently generates initial expense and frankly if you do a serious study and held the stage of action of telemedicine, we can conclude that soon generated large profits, reduce costs to the patient, reduce costs to the healthcare system, reducing costs to society in general and an improvement of training system professionals, causing that these professionals will become more resolutive and therefore save more to the system.

Is the future and we must support it, those places where there is no need to consider the implementation of this technology and in places where time has been used for updating the material to use 100% of the possibilities that technology offers.

Seven trends that mark the future of telemedicine, according to the American Telemedicine Association (ATA).

Jonathan Linkous, executive director of the ATA, has shared seven market trends that will shape the telemedicine and telehealth in the near future. From Blogtelemedicina after reading them, We want to bring them to you, What is your  opinion about it?, We would like this to become an open forum about where telemedicine and its future.

1- Changes in the way of payments: According Linkous, the payment models have been the biggest problem of telemedicine in North America, but says that the rapid growth of models such as ACO's (Accountable Care Organizations) and Medical Home model, which are some new models of healthcare, are changing the way to pay for telemedicine services. Based on these data, the increase of the population covered by medical insurance allows you to define new models of payment. So as healthcare services are extended to regional or national health organizations.

2 - Telemedicine as a standard of care: Medical Imaging, X-rays and CT scans digital originate since decades. Teleradiology is now so common that provide radiology services 24/7. The technology can be the foundation for that telemedicine will become a standard service model. From Blogtelemedicina could extend this work to the Teledermatology also, today with existing devices could be a reference to a model in providing standard healthcare.

3 - Appearance of remote medical aid companies: The outsourcing of medical image interpretation is currently used by most hospitals in the United States. If a hospital can outsource radiology services, why not outsource dermatology, neurology, or other clinical services? A number of companies can to emerge to provide remote clinical consultations with medical specialists.


4 - The rise of virtual medical centers: In October, "Mercy Hospitals" announced the construction of a new hospital with a cost of 90 million dollars, dedicated to the "virtual healthcare". This center will have clinicians who see patients from peripheral centers in the four states in which this organization operates.

Since Blogtelemedicina We know also of the ambitious project of Cisco to undertake the construction of a hospital designed with all the technological advances in telemedicine and videoconferencing called Palomar West Medical Campus in San Diego California. Then we leave you a sample of this project known as "The Hospital of the future."

5 - mHealth: mobile health (mHealth) is an important aportation to the suite of technologies that are changing the way medical care. However, in general opinion, the mHealth environment is full of promise that yet to be tested and uncertainties about how to pay for these services is very high.


What do you think about it?. Is this a really new era, We left the eHealth and We enter in the mHealth?.

6 - Organization centralized or distributed: The Federal grants have helped establish over 200 telemedicine programs in the United States, and most seem to present a model in which a large central hospital provides services to remotes sites connected to it; but there is an emerging alternative, multiple centers linked together, that providing or receiving services from any of them to any other point in the network; the Arizona Telemedicine Program and the Ontario Telehealth Network are examples of this new approach.


This new approach is also being considered in Extremadura when updating its network of telemedicine, because experience has shown that telemedicine is not only teleconsultations, there is also e-learning, clinical sessions, etc..

7 - Multi-nationalization: Telemedicine can be an important source of international finantial trades. Global investments in high speed networks, and standardization of clinical practice, are providing the necessary basis. Different issues such as payment mechanisms, trade protectionism and cultural prejudices, remain a barrier, however, the potential revenue from such services could have a significant effect on trade balance worldwide.

Maybe it's time for chances in certain organisms,  time for Healthcare Services beyond political boundaries, that they can sign agreements or collaboration agreements with private companies, nongovernmental organizations and even countries without the resources necessary for to have trained health professionals in all specialties.

From Blogtelemedicina We are aware that these ideas come from a country where health policies are very different from European ones, but we understand that is a model that works in some countries and if we make a serious analysis of the different models of healthcare We really think that together We can to find the best option, We being aware that the European model is clearly superior, we can reach  create a third option which allows to develop both models and bring them to a higher level.

What is your opinion? What can you tell from your experience, if we plantearamos find a new model of care for telemedicine? Do you think that telemedicine has a future or simply see it as something of geeks?. We want to know your opinion and together try to build a new care model, where telemedicine has full presence, since we are fully convinced that it is useful and can provide a much higher level of healthcare if it well used.

We thank to Dr. Claudio Pelaez Vega for his collaboration , Regional Coordinator of Telemedicine Extremadura Health Service, who has provided information for this post.

What is your opinion about put barriers to Telemedicine?

From Blogtelemedicina in our daily activity We met with professionals that put barriers to telemedicine. In some cases We assume it is due to ignorance or simply to the negative feel that we generate the changes in our lives.

In diariomedico.com website explain the issue with the interesting article called "Time to break down barriers of telemedicine.", Which refers to the four main barriers: cost, training, technology, rapidly changing and costly, and field legal-for example, how to assess the productivity for professionals.

First thing to note is that telemedicine is not a substitute for anything, just a supplement that it is used correctly and taking into account technological advances, We can bring greater efficiency and effectiveness of health resources, something to keep in mind and in the current environment where the global economic crisis may lead some governments to consider the cutbacks in Health Services.

Secondly, it is true that the costs of information systems is a barrier, but we must be aware that medical shipments also generate an expense in the health system, even in the case of transfer of the patient must always take into account all expenses saved to society, savings in the use of fossil fuels, taking into account the price at which they are is an important fact, saving days worked by family members to seek permission or absence from their jobs to accompany his family, etc. ,many of them difficult to calculate but which largely affect us all. It should also be noted that this cost will be more or less profitable depending on the use of such equipment, a telemedicine stations can be used for a teleconsultation as a pilot project or can be used to be a routine work in centers health and hospitals, making e-learning sessions in medical centers including universities, which will generate a better educated generation of professionals, perform teleconsultations with third countries with fewer resources, what We call solidarity telemedicine, which generates a higher social welfare globally.

In terms of technology it is true that the technology world moves a few steps and bounds, but this rule of three would never be the right time to make any technology investment. Anyway, today the world of videoconferencing has undergone a major standardization, which has led to devices from different manufacturers can be interconnected with each other without any problem using standard protocols of communication such as h264, h323, SIP, etc. .

Finally one of the barriers most often used is that of the legal, confidentiality of teleconsultation, which given the encryption of communications and the presence of health workers in both rooms we believe has the same level of confidentiality as traditional queries. Legal security of health professionals to medical diagnosis, given that the teleconsultation can be recorded and if we understand that during a teleconsultation in real time, usually are the specialist, primary care health workers and patients, we believe this fact gives greater security than traditional query where specialist and patient are alone in a closed room without the presence of another witness. And what about managing and controlling the work of professionals, teleconsultation can be programmed by quotas, generate medical reports and of course all information is stored in a database which can be so easy to get statistics use and productivity.

Our humble opinion is that all barriers to any event that We are easily surmountable if We all do a bit of will, that's what I consider essential if We want to exceed the level of telemedicine today and has become a reality the day to day in our health centers, there must be a willingness on the part of all the figures present in the health system, agencies must be willing to make an investment in equipment and material, as with any other issue, professionals must be willing to learn and use this new technology tool that puts in your hands to increase their ability to solve and Society at large must be willing to incorporate new technologies in a broader our day to day as the potential is unmatched, as happened in the moments of the Industrial Revolution, or any other key moment in history.

United Europe wants one informatic system for digital heatlh records and electronic prescriptions for 2015.

The European Commission has published health guidelines included in the strategy called "Europe 2020", designed to improve Europe's economic growth over the next decade. Among the health priorities for the next ten years, is to establish a system of 'e-health' (including, among others, digital health records and electronic prescriptions) that will be compatible with all EU countries before 2015.

The goal is to start in 2012 designing a single network for all of Europe from the results of the pilot 'Epsos', already involved in 20 of the 27 EU countries, including Spain, Turkey and Switzerland among others.

With this philosophy, "Europe 2020" also provides for the implementation of a safe method for patients to access the network through their medical history and encourage the use of telemedicine.

Los premios ATA 2011 han sido anunciados

La Asociación Americana de Telemedicina (ATA), anunció el día 20 de abril los premios anuales que se otorgarán durante el desarrollo del ATA2011 entre los días 1 y 3 de mayo en Tampa, Florida. Estos premios reconocen a los individuos u organizaciones que gracias a sus contribucciones o desarrollos, producen un avance significativo de la telemedicina.

Dale Alverson, Presidente de la Asociación Americana de Telemedicina realizó las siguientes declaraciones: “Telemedicine represents the future of quality healthcare and our award winners are the people and companies who have helped make this future possible,”,“Their dedication, hard work and innovations in the area of remote healthcare technology have saved and improved countless patients’ lives.”

Los premios anunciados son:

    - Premio Presidente del ATA por la promoción de la telemedicina – Individual - Trofeo patrocinado por The Global Telemedicine Group
    Ganador:  Dena Puskin, Asesor Principal de Tecnología de Información en Salud y Política de Telesalud, Recursos y Servicios de Salud. Administración EE.UU. Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos. Rockville, Maryland.

   - Premio Presidente del ATA por la promoción de la telemedicina – Organización - Trofeo patrocinado por AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc.
    Ganador: Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas.

    - Premio Presidente del ATA por la promoción de la telemedicina - Innovación - Trofeo patrocinado por InTouch Health
   
Ganadores (Reconocidos por sus innovaciones en la detección de la retinopatía diabética):

    Michael D. Abramoff, profesor asociado de Oftalmología de la Universidad de Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
    Hubble Telemedical, Nashville, Tennessee.

    - Premio ATA del Consejo - Trofeo patrocinado por ViTel Net
    Ganador: Alice Borrelli, Director de Salud Global y Política Laboral, Intel Corporation
   

    - Premio al logro de un equipo - Trofeo patrocinado por AT&T
    Ganador: Equipo de Enfermería de Telemedicina del A.T.A