Realtime commentary from IT Optimization in Health Care
In Texas there are a number of Telemedicine programs. AT&T experience is that EMT (Paramedics) are a good person to place at the Patient end in a Video/TeleConsult. If a patient gets in to distress the EMT is experienced and ready to help the patient. Molina HealthCare is looking at mobile vans to deliver TeleHealth. Alaska has Telemedicine to deal with remote villages. They allow asynchronous consult. The two cases: Satellite comms in one box. Store and forward and exam equipment to do the consult. Data is collected on a laptop and brought back for teleconsult management.. Telehealth needs to be standards based. eg. Bluetooth. AT&T think Continua will drive standards for devices. Building on Bluetooth. Avaya: You can't rely on end user to make integration happen. It has to be bullet proof. Alcatel-Lucent: We need to make sure there is broadband coverage for everyone. It raises the lowest common denominator bandwidth. However we are under-estimating what can be done with SMS Texting. Africa is running rings around the USA in its use of text to engage the public and support health programs. USAC.gov to find pilot programs for advanced networks. eg. Internet2 and Lambda Rail. AT&T has resisted being a Business Associate status. This seems to be under review. AT&T's view on HIPAA is that they do not do HIPAA consulting but they do Security and Privacy consulting that enables their clients to achieve HIPAA compliance. Technical standards are only one element of HIPAA.
A Health, Social Media and Technology blog by Mark Scrimshire (@ekivemark), Chief Instigator of HealthCa.mp - Empowering Health Care Engagement.
