Telemedicine Solutions To Optimise Healthcare

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Telemedicine Solutions To Optimise Healthcare

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=44424

Dr Marco is one of several specialists in Spain, Italy and Denmark

who began using a telecounselling service last year developed by

HEALTH OPTIMUM, a groundbreaking project funded under the European

Commission's eTEN programme that is helping to kick start the

deployment of telemedicine across Europe.

Coupled with a telelaboratory service that allows patient test

samples to be analysed remotely, the internet-based HEALTH OPTIMUM

solutions are having a profound impact on healthcare in the regions

where they were tested and where they are continuing to be used.

Doctors are saving time, public healthcare systems are saving money,

and patients are receiving better coordinated and better quality

care.

" At first, patients were surprised when they went to their local

doctor's office and I was able to talk to them and see them over a

computer, but surprise turned to satisfaction when they realised they

wouldn't have to come to the hospital, " says Dr Marco. " Barbastro,

[where he works], is the only hospital for a widely distributed

population. Many people live up to a hundred kilometres away, the

winters are hard and the roads can be bad. "

But saving patients the inconvenience of travelling to hospital for

routine consultations, when physical check ups with a specialist are

unnecessary, is not the only advantage. Because their general

practitioner is present during the videoconference, they receive

better coordinated care, with the GP and the specialist able to

jointly study patient data, including scans and samples, over the

telecounselling service.

" The benefits to all actors in the healthcare sector are enormous, "

notes Claudio Dario, the HEALTH OPTIMUM project coordinator at the

Treviso Local Health Authority in the Veneto region of Italy.

In trials in Veneto, the telecounselling service has been used to

link primary healthcare facilities to hospital neurology departments,

allowing patients with head injuries to be accurately diagnosed by a

specialist without having to be physically transferred to a hospital.

" This resulted in a 79 per cent reduction in the number of people

being referred to a specialist facility, " says Dario. " Before the

deployment of this service 53 per cent of patients would be referred

to a specialist, now just 11 per cent are because neurologists are

able to diagnose the patient remotely and determine whether or not

they need specialised care. "

Not only does this save neurologists time and healthcare systems

money, but the quality of care patients receive improves. " The

reliability of the diagnosis is the same because neurologists have

access to scans and data from the primary healthcare facility, and by

not transferring patients who don't have to be they are not being

subjected to unnecessary risks, " Dario notes.

In the event that they do need to be referred to hospital and undergo

surgery, the telecounselling system gives physicians access to

information about the patient in advance and allows them to prepare

more rapidly and efficiently. " By the time a patient arrives, the

physicians are ready to put them on the operating table, " the

coordinator says.

Saving time, increasing efficiency and improving care are also the

main benefits of HEALTH OPTIMUM's telelaboratory service.

Remote analysis equipment allows primary healthcare professionals to

take samples of a patient's blood or urine, analyse the samples on

the spot at the patients bedside or in their home and send the

results wirelessly to a specialist over a secure Public Key

Infrastructure (PKI).

" It normally takes a day or more for samples to be physically sent to

a laboratory and the diagnosis returned to the patient's doctor.

Telelaboratory provides results in 10 minutes, " Dario says.

By proving the benefits of telemedicine solutions and deploying them

in pioneering trials, the HEALTH OPTIMUM project has acted as a

catalyst for the rollout of services to meet the challenges facing

public healthcare systems. All the regions that participated in the

trials - Aragón in Spain, Veneto in Italy and Funen in Denmark - are

continuing to employ and expand the services.

All of Veneto's health centres will be linked up within " one or two

years, " Dario says, while new projects are being planned by the

HEALTH OPTIMUM consortium to extend the system to Sweden and Romania.

In Aragón, there are also plans to take the system region wide, says

Nieves Campillo, a representative of the regional government. " This

has been a revolutionary project with important benefits and wide

acceptance among the population, " she says.