Telemedicine News and Research

Latest Telemedicine News and Research

Insurer, tech vendor plan major 'telehealth' network

A major health insurer, UnitedHealth, and a computer networking company, Cisco Systems, are teaming up to create "a network of virtual clinics to make medical care available in offices, stores and rural areas around the country," Bloomberg reports.

16 Jul 2009

WSJ examines pharmaceutical companies expansion into developing countries

The Wall Street Journal examines the "strategic shift in the $770 billion pharmaceutical industry to target the working poor in the developing world" through the eyes of a Pfizer pharmaceutical representative working in the slums overlooking Caracas, Venezuela.

7 Jul 2009

Telemedicine stroke program provides woman a lifeline

While suffering a major stroke at her home near Mena, Iva Sikes assumed the worst, not knowing that a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) - led telemedicine program would provide her a complete recovery.

24 Jun 2009

e-health enables more personalized medicine; group fights for digital patient rights

Tonia Odom, a 35-year-old patient with rheumatoid arthritis, a sick father and a young son, each of whom has multiple health problems, has found some relief to the problems of managing her families' array of illnesses in at a Duke University clinic that's a model of the "medical home" approach to medicine, the New York Times reports.

23 Jun 2009

Support Tasmania with telecare

On 30 April 2009, Tunstall Healthcare and Alzheimer's Australia Tasmania launched 'Telecare in Tasmania', a new respite facility fitted out with a range of Tunstall's assistive technologies, where people can come and try out the technology for themselves.

18 Jun 2009

CNN, The Independent, VOA News examine technology, health systems in developing countries

CNN examines the increasing numbers of health workers using cell phone technology to monitor diseases in the developing world. The article features EpiSurveyor - "a free, open-source application designed for personal digital assistants" that can be downloaded onto cell phones, so that officials can "gather data directly from the site of the outbreak and send it electronically back to headquarters for faster analysis," CNN writes.

18 Jun 2009

Telemedicine expands reach of care for Parkinson’s patients

A unique and innovative telemedicine project is providing distant nursing home patients with Parkinson's disease access to neurologists at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC).A pilot study of the project - the results of which were released this month at the International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders in Paris - demonstrates that the system can improve the quality of life and motor function of patients.

17 Jun 2009

Telehealth interventions for the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease

The use of phone and internet between patients and healthcare providers is an effective way to reduce risk factors for coronary heart disease and the risk of further events after a heart attack, according to new research published today in the June issue of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation.

16 Jun 2009

Telemedicine may improve care for school children with diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is the most common chronic childhood disease. The management of this serious medical condition includes regular fingerstick glucose measurements, multiple daily injections of insulin, and frequent insulin dose adjustments. Because children spend a great deal of their time in school, school nurses often supervise medical decisions and diabetes care.

21 May 2009

IT to enhance healthcare across Europe

European healthcare is threatened by soaring costs and limited resources.

26 Apr 2009

Telemedicine expansion gives parents more options

Parents who need after-hours healthcare for their children don't need to turn to the Emergency Department (ED) for common childhood illnesses, such as ear infections and sore throats.

17 Mar 2009

Telehealth for diabetes promotes aging at home, not in the hospital

A large study of ethnically and racially diverse individuals with diabetes has found that home telemonitoring of their health resulted in significantly fewer deaths than in a similar group that was not monitored. Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

12 Mar 2009

Stroke telemedicine assessed

Stroke telemedicine is a lifesaving practice that deserves further advancement, Mayo researchers write in the January 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

19 Jan 2009

New mobile health van will tackle ear problems amongst children in remote Indigenous communities

An innovative new medical program in Queensland will use the latest technology to help treat children living in remote Indigenous communities.

9 Dec 2008

Taking telemedicine to the next level

Imagine a scenario where doctors from different hospitals can collaborate on a surgery without having to actually be in the operating room.

12 Nov 2008

MD FIRE program aims to integrate medical devices to improve the safety of medical care

In an effort to hasten the availability of medical device interoperability to drive safer patient care and clinical efficiency, the Medical Device Plug-and-Play (MD PnP) Interoperability Program announced the launch of "MD FIRE," the Medical Device Free Interoperability Requirements for the Enterprise collaboration at the American Society of Anesthesiologists 2008 Annual Meeting held October 18-22 in Orlando, Florida.

11 Nov 2008

Commonwealth Fund report examines health care proposals of major Presidential candidates

The health care proposal of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is more likely to improve health care affordability, accessibility, efficiency and quality than the plan of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), according to a report released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, Reuters/Boston Globe reports.

5 Oct 2008

Webcam technology helps Arizona hospitals better communicate with non-English-speaking patients

A webcam language interpretation service is helping three Arizona hospitals better serve Spanish-speaking patients in their emergency departments, the East Valley & Scottsdale Tribune reports. The Iasis Healthcare hospitals had relied on telephone interpretation services before implementing the new webcam system.

16 Sep 2008

A home early warning system for cardiac patients

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in Europe and early diagnosis is essential to save lives. Monitoring the heart's rhythm and electrical activity in real time using an electrocardiogram (ECG) provides vital information about abnormalities and gives clues to the nature of a problem. Some cardiac conditions need long-term monitoring - inconvenient for patients as it requires them to be away from their everyday environment for indeterminate periods of time.

3 Sep 2008

Small changes can make big health solutions

We shouldn't be emphasising expensive high tech vaccines and dazzling miracle drugs at the expense of more low tech ways improve people's health, particularly in the face of climate change, a young health researcher writes.

8 Aug 2008