Entries tagged with telemedicine - Channel 10

Extending and coordinating care with Unified Communication: The next wave is here

bcrounse — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:43:00 GMT

Ten years ago I co-founded a company with the aim to provide web-based medical information, secure messaging and virtual visits between patients and their personal physicians. Working in partnership with Microsoft we developed technology that was well ahead of its time, and also well ahead of the market's ability to absorb it. Quite honestly, the technology was also a bit too complex, too expensive, and too hard to use. But that was then.

Roll forward ten years. The technology has matured. Governments and payors around the world are looking for ways to provide health information and medical services more efficiently. Shortages and mal-distributions of qualified medical professionals, aging populations, and the increasing burden of chronic disease are creating a perfect storm in healthcare. A medical model that is solely dependent on physicians providing care to patients one-on-one, in city center clinics or hospitals, doesn't scale anymore and certainly isn't sustainable.

Earlier this year I posted a Blog on Unified Communications: The Next Big Thing in Healthcare. If you didn't read it then, please read it now to become better grounded on what I'm about to share.

Envision a world where modalities for both synchronous and asynchronous communication begin to merge on the desktop, or even on your Smartphone. Imagine being able to schedule a virtual consultation with a colleague or colleagues as easily as you schedule an appointment in Outlook today.

Picture yourself using rich audio and video to enhance the communication and collaboration. Think about how you could share applications on your desktop, work together on documents, or extend presentations in a lecture hall to hundreds or thousands of your colleagues wherever they might be.

What about patients? Depending on your specialty this may be more or less relevant. However, I don't think there is a clinician out there who wouldn't benefit from incorporating Unified Communications into their practice work-flow. UC opens up amazing possibilities for virtual visits, follow-up visits, medication checks, home care, wound checks, chronic disease management, mental health, nurse call centers, patient education, and more. As governments and other payors around the world begin to understand the economics and value proposition of extending care with this now-commoditzed technology, healthcare services will go through a remarkable transformation.

With Microsoft Unified Communications, and the newest versions of Microsoft Office, Office Communicator and Office Live Meeting, all of this is not only possible; it is easy, intuitive and downright spectacular.

Use it as a hosted service or bring it into your enterprise. Do live interactive programs or record them for on-demand viewing later. There isn't a medical school, hospital, clinic, or physician's office that couldn't benefit from the mind-bending possibilities this technology unleashes. Get ready for a new day in healthcare.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Telemedicine, e-mail and messaging

bcrounse — Wed, 16 May 2007 02:52:00 GMT

I wanted to draw your attention to a just released interview I did with Digital Healthcare and Productivity. In it, I talk about one of the most worrisome trends I see in US healthcare; how far we are falling behind the rest of the world in the use of information technology in the industry, including the provision of health and medical services via the web.

It's ironic that this interview was released while I'm attending the first-ever Asia-Pacific HIMSS conference in Singapore. Last evening, I met with several clinicians who were telling me how tele-medicine and e-mail are being embraced by clinicians and patients all across this country, especially for primary care. As you may know, Singapore has a very progressive public-private healthcare system that serves the population extremely well at a cost to the GNP that is only one third of what we spend in the US.

As I travel the world, not only am I seeing more progressive use of information technology in healthcare compared to the US, I'm just plain seeing lots of technology everywhere that we don't have. Even the taxi cabs here are marvels of IT on wheels. Want to charge your cab ride using a credit card? No problem. Want a GPS-enabled turn by turn tour of the town? Got it. Want the cab's computer to calculate your fare and then explain it to you in your native language? Done! Oh, I did I tell you about the cell phones people use here that are years more advanced than anything you'll see in the US, or that my hotel room has a 42-inch fully digital, high definition LCD TV with more than 100 channels? I think you get the idea.

Better wake up America before it's too late! An electronic health record for most American's within ten years (now just seven years since that proclamation was made)? They already have that in Singapore. And tomorrow? Well, let's just say officials here and elsewhere around the world see a very big market for delivering healthcare to Americans who are either willing to travel for it, or better yet, want to receive a least a portion of their care on-line.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

After the FREDDIES: 5 Trends that will Shake the World (of healthcare)

bcrounse — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:30:00 GMT

I'm back from the FREDDIE Awards in New York City. I had a wonderful time at the event which was held at the Cipriani on E42nd Street. It was a star-studded evening and a chance to catch up with a few of my colleagues from the world of television, including CNN anchor Paula Zahn who I used to work with at ABC Network News on "The Health Show".

Thursday morning I'll be delivering the opening keynote address for a regional conference put on by MultiCare at the Convention Center in Tacoma, Washington. The conference, sponsored by Microsoft, is "Emerging Trends in Health Care Technology". My keynote will focus on "5 Healthcare Trends that will Shake the World and Reshape Your Business". Those trends include greater personal responsibility for healthcare costs; the retailization of medicine; commoditization of medical services and providers; information everywhere; and globalization of healthcare services including Internet based tele-medicine, home monitoring services and medical tourism.

On another note, I received an email from my colleague Dr. Joseph Kvedar at Partners Healthcare. Dr. Kvedar is a leading tele-medicine expert. Under the heading of What's New from the Connected Health Initiative, Dr. Kvedar shares this thought:

A Metric for Connected Health Success? "One of the most memorable moments from the Connected Health Symposium occurred during a panel I lead on the voice of the patient. Each panelist, in a spontaneous way, told of experiences with the health care system that were not patient friendly. Perhaps the most dramatic story was told by Gene Sacco, whose 20 year old son, dying of cancer at the time, spent 12 hours waiting in a doctor’s office only to be told that the test he was there to discuss was inconclusive and that they would need to visit again in a week after a better imaging study. After hearing this and other similar studies, John Henderson, a network theorist from the Boston University School of Management, proclaimed that a new metric for health care should be considered – Return on Time Invested (ROTI). This was an a-ha moment for me, and I think others in the session."

What do you think? Read more of Dr. Joseph Kvedar’s discussion and post your own comments on the topic.

If you happen to attend the MultiCare conference, please stop by and say "hello".

On Sunday, my wife and I travel to Las Vegas where I am pleased to keynote for the NextGen User's Conference at the Bellagio. NextGen is one of our very good partners in the ambulatory EMR space, and I look forward to spending time with their executives and users. Wish me luck at the tables :)

Bill Crounse, MD Healthcare Industry Director Microsoft