A recent article in The New York Times discusses TeleStroke, a telemedicine program being offered by Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston. The program is designed to help hospitals that do not have the resources to employ expensive stroke specialists and as a result, are not equipped to make decisions about administering the effective but high-risk standard-of-care medicine for stroke, tPA.
Through TeleStroke, stroke specialists can examine and diagnose patients remotely via videoconferencing and image-sharing technology. Hospitals pay an annual fee ($10,000 in the case of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, the focus of the Times piece) for 24-hour virtual access to stroke specialists. The fee is miniscule in comparison to keeping on staff highly trained physicians who command steep salaries.
Telemedicine companies are popping up everywhere. Earlier this month, at the American Telemedicine Association’s annual meeting, more than 300 presentations took place on remote care, computer-assisted diagnoses, robotics and other telemedicine topics.
One exhibitor at the event, TeleMedDox, has a similar offering to TeleStroke’s, but on a specialty-wide basis. The privately held Sarasota, FL-based company provides contract physician services to corporations, private practices and government agencies. Through a pocket-sized key drive, credentialed physicians in TeleMedDox’s network can access and share medical records, lab results and diagnostic images. The company also offers one-on-one, real-time sessions with physicians (through videoconferencing).
In addition to rising healthcare costs, TeleMedDox’s technology may help address another systemic problem: physician frustration with long, inconvenient schedules and insurance headaches.