The Doctor Will See You Now (Part I)

Another example comes from Clinician Support Technology, a Massachusetts-based firm that establishes streaming video connections between the neonatal intensive care units that house low birth-weight premature infants and the parents at home. Dr. Charles Safran, the company’s chief executive officer, estimates that the improved coordination between home and hospital shaves a half-day off of each week of care.

Government. Government agencies that treat large numbers of patients are beginning to see the biggest savings. "You don’t see a telephone company that operates in just one state," says Adam Darkins, head telemedicine consultant for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which does 243,000 telemedicine consultations a year through a network of 107 academic centers and 173 medical centers. "The way to do it is to operate it on a large scale. That’s where you get the real efficiencies."

At the University of Texas Medical Branch, Boultinghouse estimates the telemedicine program has saved the system $300 million, or $50 million for each year the program has been in operation. The savings have been plowed back into the system so that by February 2002, each of the 92 prisons under UT’s jurisdiction will be equipped with a telemedicine system.

Vendors. Many companies that develop and supply videomedicine’s infrastructure are in the videoconferencing space, vendors such as Polycom, PictureTel, Tandberg and Zydacron. Videomedicine is just one of several niche markets for these companies, serving as an incremental revenue source. Other vendors are just now getting into videomedicine and providing cutting-edge new technologies. TRW, for example, has contributed much of the $3-$5 million spent so far to develop the University of Maryland’s video-ambulance project. David Gagliano, TRW’s manager of Internet technologies, says the potential payoff is not just a spread to ambulances around the country, but development of similar technology for use anywhere people want remote eyes and ears, such as in hazardous materials disposal or navigation of unmanned aircraft.

Read Part II of The Doctor Will See You Now on Monday, December 3, 2001.

Take Two Streams: Streaming Video on the Rise in Modern Medicine

From training to remote observations, the use of streaming video in the medical and pharmaceutical markets is growing.

08 Oct 2019