EHR Use Thought To Help Boost Adoption of Telehealth Initiatives
Growing adoption of electronic health records is expected to complement and boost the use of telehealth initiatives across the country, InformationWeek reports.
Health care organizations are planning to deploy telehealth programs to increase access:
- To certain specialists;
- For patients with conditions that prevent them from traveling; and
- During patient transport, since some conditions require treatment while patients are in transit.
Greater use of EHRs will provide remote specialists with more detailed data about patients. Digital medical images, ranging from picture-archiving systems to digital cameras, also can provide more information to providers.
InformationWeek described several telehealth initiatives, including:
- The use of telemedicine gear — including videos and digital stethoscopes — to help physicians treat pediatric patients in transit to hospitals in the area in and around Cincinnati, Ohio;
- Telestroke, an application that links hospitals without stroke specialists to specialists at other hospitals; and
- An effort to offer telehealth services to employees on-site at company facilities (Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek, 4/27).
Above article publish on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/4/28/ehr-use-thought-to-help-boost-adoption-of-telehealth-initiatives.aspx
Filed under: EHR, EHR companies, Electronic Health Records on April 29th, 2010
EHRs will most definitely make telemedicine easier to implement. There are many companies, such as Polycom, working on developing technology to expand telemedicine services and integration with EHR systems. EHRtv did an interview with Polycom at HIMSS10. It’s interesting to learn about their telemedicine initiatives and amazing technology! You can find the interview here: http://www.ehrtv.com/polycom-deborah-jeffries-mar-2010/