They could see each other by video monitor. Barsoom was in a meeting room in the Omaha hospital. Gronenthal, who had lost a baby near the end of pregnancy a couple of years ago, was in a doctor’s office in Norfolk. Michael Barsoom, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Bergan Mercy Medical Center, consulted with 25-year-old Nicole Gronenthal about her pregnancy. Max Thacker, associate director of info technology at UNMC, said Wittson used technology similar to closed-circuit television. Wittson did some psychiatric consultations with two-way audio and video about 55 years ago with patients in the regional center in Norfolk, Neb. Cecil Wittson, was perhaps the first in the nation to use it. Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha, who introduced the legislation.Īlthough Constantine said Nebraska has a long way to go before it maximizes telehealth, a former University of Nebraska Medical Center dean and chancellor, Dr. “We’re just trying to eliminate as many barriers to it (telehealth) as possible,” said State Sen. The Nebraska Legislature, for instance, is considering an amendment that would require the state Medicaid program to cover remote monitoring of patients by technology.Īmong other things, the amendment also would remove the requirement that a patient be at least 30 miles from the doctor in a videoconference consultation for that interaction to be reimbursed by Medicaid. Telehealth proponents say it’s a struggle for laws and rules to keep up. It can reduce costly visits to the emergency room and hospital admissions. Telehealth has special value in vast rural states such as Nebraska and Iowa, where specialists can be thinly distributed. It holds the promise to restore, in a sense, the long-vanished doctor’s home visit. The technology allows frail patients to have psychiatric appointments in their nursing homes and women enduring high-risk pregnancies to be seen by specialists without having to drive 100 miles or more. The Nebraska Med Center alone has at least 13 new test projects or initiatives in telehealth, ranging from stroke exams to cancer care. Legislation is changing,” said Mandi Constantine, who was hired 15 months ago as executive director of telehealth for the Nebraska Medical Center to hasten the hospital’s efforts.ĭoctors and hospitals are finding many purposes for telehealth and numerous ways to implement it. It uses long-standing technology such as videoconferencing and telephones as well as emerging devices that enable patients to track and deliver their own heart rates and blood sugar levels. Telehealth is flourishing and growing rapidly in Nebraska, Iowa and nationwide.
There is nothing futuristic about telehealth, the use of technology to connect patients to doctors without an office visit. Top Stem Cell University Research Centers.
0 kommentar(er)
