The Doctor Is in (Your Inbox)

By: Dennis McCafferty 

Feburary 18, 2010-Telehealth is an emerging IT industry niche that promises to reduce health-care spending--not to mention time spent in the doctor’s office.

Even within a subject as controversial as health care, Americans can find widespread agreement: as in, who wants to spend hours of time in a waiting room? Who wouldn’t like to save tens of thousands of dollars in hospital fees?
Given the lack of any partisan sniping on these talking points, the concept of "telehealth" is booming: With more than 75 percent of all health-care spending going toward chronic illness treatment, these IT solutions could save $4 billion a year, according to industry estimates. The whole idea is to have more information exchanged between patients and health-care providers electronically, to reduce time spent in doctor’s offices and hospitals. The availability of more solutions is translating into greater adoption on the part of health-care providers, as nearly four in 10 physicians communicate with patients through e-mail, secure messaging services or instant messages -- a 14 percent increase since 2006, according to Manhattan Research.
Here are a few products that are now delivering results to hospital corporations and other health-care industry providers: 

• Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GlobalMedia’s TransportAV is a system that’s actually mounted on stretchers used on the field during emergencies such as heart attacks or strokes. It allows EMTs (emergency medical technicians) to communicate directly to doctors, using a military-grade touch-screen PC, 3G Aircard, controllable camera, ClearSteth Stethoscope and wireless keyboard with headset. The 30-pound product is also detachable, so EMTs can remove it once they arrive at the emergency room and equip it to another stretcher that will go out on their next medical call.
  
  
• Minneapolis-based Medtronic’s CareLink Monitor can read cardiac devices such as pacemakers and cardioverter-defibrillators implanted in patients, and deliver to doctors and nurses within minutes online updates/data about how the devices are working. This allows health-care providers to adjust treatment as needed in a more timely fashion. The system is supported by the same servers and encryption software used for key applications at most medical institutions. Nearly 400,000 patients in 30 countries are now monitored by the product, and Medtronic is now looking to expand the technology to address devices implanted in patients to treat other diseases.

• A Bluetooth-enabled telehealth product, Ideal Life, is now available to check on glucose levels, blood pressure, body weight and other critical information via phone lines, cell phones, e-mail and other communications means. Alerts can be sent to doctors, who can then phone in or e-mail advice/coaching, saving thousands of dollars for every hospital admission avoided. The product’s open-technology platform supports customization and integrates with existing health-care information systems. Anthem Blue Cross of California and Bayada Health are among the health-care organizations using this system. And the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission selected it for a pioneering health-care project serving some of the nation’s most disadvantaged communities.

“The product combines the sciences of anthropology and software engineering -- as well as research on consumer behavior and how people would actually use these devices,” says Jason Goldberg, founder/president of Ideal Life, based in Toronto. “From this, we developed a system that would be a natural extension of human behavior.”