Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association
-
In response to rising healthcare costs and the social and economic burden of outpatient rehabilitation services, telepain management has emerged as an exciting alternative method of clinical care. Patients with limb amputations who experience phantom limb pain (PLP) are typically treated unsuccessfully using medications, injections, or additional surgeries. Mirror therapy is a noninvasive, cost-effective alternative to current treatment options for PLP. ⋯ PLP relief can be obtained using home-based mirror therapy with initiation, feedback, and follow-up with healthcare professionals conducted entirely through telemedicine.
-
Rural and community emergency departments (EDs) often receive and treat critically ill children despite limited access to pediatric expertise. Increasingly, pediatric critical care programs at children's hospitals are using telemedicine to provide consultations to these EDs with the goal of increasing the quality of care. ⋯ This single institutional, university children's hospital-based review demonstrates that a pediatric critical care telemedicine program used to provide consultations to seriously ill children in rural and community EDs is feasible, sustainable, and used relatively infrequently, most typically for the sickest pediatric patients.
-
Mobile phones are ubiquitous in society and owned by a majority of psychiatric patients, including those with severe mental illness. Their versatility as a platform can extend mental health services in the areas of communication, self-monitoring, self-management, diagnosis, and treatment. However, the efficacy and reliability of publicly available applications (apps) have yet to be demonstrated. Numerous articles have noted the need for rigorous evaluation of the efficacy and clinical utility of smartphone apps, which are largely unregulated. Professional clinical organizations do not provide guidelines for evaluating mobile apps. ⋯ Ultimately, leadership is needed to develop a framework for describing apps, and guidelines are needed for both patients and mental health providers.
-
Tele-emergency is an expanding telehealth service that provides real-time audio/visual consultation delivered by an emergency medicine team to a remote, often rural, emergency department (ED). Financial analyses of tele-emergency in the literature are limited. This article expands the tele-emergency literature to describe the business case for tele-emergency. "Business case" is defined as a reasoned argument, supported by objective data and/or qualitative judgment, to implement or continue a service or product. ⋯ Tele-emergency may be a profitable rural hospital service line if the participating hospital adjusts ED processes to take advantage of increased revenue/savings opportunities afforded by tele-emergency. Savings due to tele-emergency primarily accrue when physician ED backup and physician ED staffing costs are substituted.
-
Smartphone cameras are rapidly being introduced in medical practice, among other devices for image-based teleconsultation. Little is known, however, about the actual quality of the images taken, which is the object of this study. ⋯ Whereas one smartphone camera ranked best more often, all three smartphones obtained results at least as good as those of the digital camera. Smartphone cameras can be a substitute for digital cameras for the purposes of medical teleconsulation.