Showing posts with label telemedicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telemedicine. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

FCC chairman: Connectivity main obstacle of telemedicine | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com

FCC chairman: Connectivity main obstacle of telemedicine | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com: Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Pai said, from the FCC's viewpoint, connectivity remains the biggest hurdle to a serious move toward widespread use of telemedicine. "The telemedicine application is only as strong as the digital connections between communities," said Pai, a 2012 Obama appointee who was designated director of the commission by President Trump, and a noted free-market advocate. Pai pointed to his agency's recent infusion of funds into its Rural Health Care Program, which provides funds to some health care providers for broadband and telecommunications services. He also said he is aiming to eliminate outdated FCC rules and encourage competition among internet service providers. "We want to make sure these companies have a strong incentive to upgrade to fiber, especially in these rural communities that need high-capacity internet access," Pai said.
The FCC chairman is right when he says America needs more fiber advanced telecommunications infrastructure deployment as medical care increasingly utilizes it. But it won't happen with Pai's prescriptions. Limited purpose funding such as the Rural Health Care Program will hardly make a dent in the nation's enormous accumulated telecommunications infrastructure deficit where FTTP is the exception rather than the norm it should be.

Nor can regulatory reforms address the fundamental business problem facing investor owned ISPs. Building new fiber infrastructure under their current business models cannot yield positive net present value within the limited patience of their investors' capital looking for rapid returns. And encouraging competition in a natural monopoly market that is telecommunications infrastructure is like expecting ice cream plants to grow in the desert. No meaningful competition can ever occur.

Thursday, April 09, 2015

Telemedicine: Benefitting Providers & Patients | USTelecom

Telemedicine: Benefitting Providers & Patients | USTelecom

A number of presenters at this week's California Telehealth Network 2015 Summit #TELEHEALTH2015 mentioned deficient telecommunications infrastructure and services as a key impediment to greater adoption of telehealth, particularly in rural areas where it can offer the greatest benefit to patients and providers.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Telehealth provider complains many consumers lack bandwidth to meet newly adopted telehealth guidelines

Model policy designed to guide state medical boards in regulating the delivery of medical services remotely via telemedicine (also referred to as telehealth) has drawn protest over its requirement that doctors and patients cannot rely exclusively on lower bandwidth applications such as texting, email and voice communications and instead must utilize higher bandwidth secure Internet videoconferencing.

“Not everybody has a video device or has access to the bandwidth” to make the standard useful, said Henry DePhillips, chief medical officer of Teladoc in remarks reported by Modern Healthcare. Even for consumers in an urban setting, “over 95 percent of the time, will chose the telephone, even if they have the device and the bandwidth,"DePhillips added.  

The Federation of State Medical Boards Model Policy for the Appropriate Use of Telemedicine Technologies in the Practice of Medicine defines telemedicine as follows:
“Telemedicine” means the practice of medicine using electronic communications, information technology or other means between a licensee in one location, and a patient in another location with or without an intervening healthcare provider. Generally, telemedicine is not an audio-only, telephone conversation, e-mail/instant messaging conversation, or fax. It typically involves the application of secure videoconferencing or store and forward technology to provide or support healthcare delivery by replicating the interaction of a traditional, encounter in person between a provider and a patient. 
The bandwidth adequacy concern raised by DePhillips has merit insofar as a sizable segment of American homes are located in areas that lack telecommunications infrastructure able to reliably support videoconferencing, while the pricing models of mobile wireless providers are designed to discourage the use of high bandwidth applications.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Pew Internet survey flawed by badly outdated, retro perspective

With the relentless pace of Internet bandwidth demand growth to support multiple services including video, voice and Web-based services as well as a portable devices used in the home, there is near consensus that only fiber to the premises infrastructure will be able to accommodate the demand going forward.

That’s why I’m taken aback to continue to see surveys such as this one issued today by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that take a decidedly retrospective view of telecommunications services with their late 1990s distinction between narrowband (dialup) Internet connectivity and “high speed” broadband connections. 

Dialup service is obsolete and can no longer be considered a useful form of premises Internet connectivity. Had this survey been done in 2000 when the distinction between narrowband and broadband was still relevant, the distinction might have meant something. In 2013, it is a distinction without a difference. 

The other major contextual problem with a survey like this is it concentrates only on computer-based services such as Web browsing and email. That’s also a major flaw in the survey. The Internet now delivers video and voice services including applications such as online learning, videoconferencing and telemedicine – none of which are truly usable via a dialup service.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Telemedicine market to reach $2.5B by 2018 | Healthcare IT News

Telemedicine market to reach $2.5B by 2018 | Healthcare IT News: Moreover, telemedicine has been seen to be beneficial for individuals living in isolated communities and rural regions. Telemedicine technology allows patients who live in these rural areas to be seen by a doctor or specialist, who can provide an accurate and complete examination, without the patient to traveling away from their families to far-off medical centers.
The problem is these communities typically lack the necessary telecommunications infrastructure to support telemedicine.  This infrastructure gap will be more keenly felt in the near future as the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care significantly increases the number of people in these areas covered by public and private health insurance.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

California report: Telemedicine may help meet post reform rise in demand

The California state Legislative Analyst's Office recommends Golden State lawmakers consider integrating telemedicine into California's health care delivery system. The suggestion comes in the last sentence of a report the LAO issued last week on the impact of the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on state health care programs.

The report notes that as more people become medically insured when most of its provisions take effect in 2014, California's health care system may lack capacity to serve a greater number of patients. Telemedicine --videoconferencing with medical professionals and uploading patient data -- offers the potential to make it easier for doctors to consult with patients and possibly serve more of them.

Before telemedicine can be adopted as a lower cost and more convenient method for patients to access medical professionals, the telecommunications infrastructure must be upgraded and expanded to provide reliable, Internet protocol-based service delivered via fiber optic cable connections to residences. Much of that job will fall to community-based entities such as municipal and consumer-owned telecom cooperatives.

Monday, November 19, 2007

California uniquely positioned to demonstrate benefits of telemedicine

With rural areas comprising about 70 percent of the state along with its well developed medical care and high tech industries, California is uniquely positioned to be a national model for the use of telemedicine, the use of broadband telecommunications to allow doctors to consult with patients online. That reduces the need for patients to drive long distances to see medical providers in distant metro areas.

Kate Ackerman reports in today's California Healthline:


Telemedicine advocates across the country are working to alleviate some of these barriers to facilitate widespread adoption, but California is in a unique position to be a model for the rest of the country.

"California is the perfect state to do this in," said Peter Yellowlees, professor of psychiatry and director of academic information systems at the UC-Davis Medical Center, adding, "Officially, 70% of the state is rural, and it's a huge state. ... So I think the rural geography in California makes it ideal, but I think also there's an attitude of 'can do' in California where people clearly are prepared to try things differently."

One of the biggest obstacles to the use of telemedicine the article neglected to mention is the lack of advanced telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas of California. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose administration is about to issue a report by a blue ribbon task force report on what can be done to remove obstacles to wider broadband availability, is a proponent of telemedicine.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

California rural lawmakers back UC request for FCC telemedicine pilot funding

The California Legislative Rural Caucus has lent its support to the University of California’s application for $24 million in funding to the Federal Communication Commission Rural Health Care Pilot Program. According to the caucus, the federal funds would be matched with funds from the California Emerging Technology Fund to speed broadband deployment for telemedicine applications in rural areas of the Golden State.

"Together with an investment from the California Emerging Technology Fund, the FCC’s funds will make quality health care more accessible to Californians living in rural areas," the caucus wrote in a May 15 letter to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin. "Many of the challenges in rural health arise from limited access to core health care services. Lack of access to healthcare may mean that appropriate treatment is delayed or deferred, causing unnecessary hospitalizations, higher costs, and greater disability and personal suffering. Health information technology (HIT) provides powerful tools to enhance access to comprehensive, quality healthcare services in the most geographically isolated areas. HIT can assist rural providers to better coordinate services for their patients by bridging distances and providing immediate access to clinical knowledge, specialized expertise, and services otherwise unavailable in rural areas."

The letter was sent the same week Blue Shield pulled out of four California counties, complaining medical care costs incurred by state and local government workers and retirees covered through the California Personnel and Retirement System (CalPERS) are signficantly higher in rural parts of the state.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Schwarzenegger questioned on how telemedicine funding will expand broadband access

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received some skeptical questioning from a broadband deprived area of the state at a telemedicine demonstration project held last week in Eureka.


A questioner asked how $200 million earmarked for telemedicine under Proposition 1D, the school construction bond approved by voters last November, would help expand broadband access in Humboldt County. The questioner pointed out the county lacks a University of California campus, implying none of that $200 million would go to expanding broadband in that Northern California county:

Q: In order for something like telemedicine to work effectively, Humboldt County has to have a reliable broadband system, which we do not. What will the broadband initiative do to help us achieve a reliable system? Is the state going to be providing funding for that, or is it essentially going to be removing road blocks, as they say, to allow businesses (Inaudible)

GOVERNOR: Well, both. First of all, with my executive order we eliminated road blocks that were there, because we want to go and build and facilitate every town, every village in California as quickly as possible. That is the idea. So it’s a combination with the private sector and the public sector. That’s why we put the 200 million dollars in there, so that when they start building and increasing the facilities, university facilities. We are saying lets not just build buildings, let us also bring in technology, the latest technology. And so that’s what the 200 million dollars is all for.

Q: But we don’t have a university (Inaudible)

GOVERNOR: No, no, but I mean so that the private sector will pick it up and then take it to the various different places. So thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for being here. (Applause)


It bears watching closely how much of the $200 million Schwarzenegger says will ostensibly be granted to private sector telecom vendors results in greater broadband availability in Humboldt County and other areas of California mired on the dark side of the digital divide.