This is the third year of a collaborative effort
with Telemedicine Today magazine to collect program-level data.
Readers will find it to be the most extensive effort yet to document the
state of the telemedicine industry from the clinical providers’
perspective.
This year’s report includes
- analysis and interpretation of findings
- a set of appendices for quick referencing of a broad range of industry
program-level information
- mapping of telemedicine-equipped facilities by region
- more detailed information on programs’ sources of funding
- information on prison telemedicine
- data on equipment use and satisfaction
Some of the report’s findings:
Telemedicine continues to grow
There are more documented programs, higher levels of clinical activity.
Continued increase in the average number of teleconsultations per program
suggests that actual growth is occurring. However, growth does not mean
that all patients or programs are benefiting equally. Activity varies
greatly by program, by state, by clinical specialty, and by population
served (prison programs make up 20% of reported activity for 1998).
Telemedicine systems are being employed extensively for uses other than
the delivery of patient care.
Educational use of systems is extensive-- mostly consisting of
continuing-education offerings for nurses and physicians, as well as grand
rounds, supervision and teaching applications.
The "conventional model" (which may have never mirrored
reality) of specialist consultation delivered to rural hospitals describes
only a fraction of what is occurring.
More than 30 different clinical services are being offered by programs,
and more than 40 types of clinical facilities are equipped and
participating in telemedicine networks, some of which are entirely
urban-based. Programs are learning to apply the technologies in novel ways
(e.g., the use of videoconferencing to facilitate patient visitation in
ICU, or to allow in-patients to "attend" important social events
in their lives).
There is little consensus on issues of scale or size in designing a
telemedicine network.
Telecommunications technologies are becoming more diverse. While
interactive video is still the most common means of delivering care
remotely, store-and-forward, audiographic and telemetry technologies are
gaining wider acceptance, and many programs deliver care using a
combination of these.
Questions? e-mail
the authors
Order the report
