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Telemedicine Comes Into Its Own
goG writes "Telemedicine — providing care using advanced communications technology may be coming into its own with a little help from Uncle Sam. The Obama administration recently awarded $795 million in grants and loans for 66 new broadband projects. Most of these projects will involve using videoconferencing equipment to allow doctors to consult on medical procedures or examinations remotely."
Um, dude, there wouldn't be an internet were it not for US Federal funding. African health care is a non sequitor, it hasn't got anything to do with the technology funds, nor does it in any way demonstrate that they shouldn't be funding it.
Coming soon: Your insurance company will pay the maximum benefit if and only if you use their preferred tele-presence doctors from India.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
You apparently are unaware that the Bush Administration spent a lot more money to fight AIDS in Africa then any President before or since. Oh what a shame, the UN kleptocrats didn't get their cut.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I was a research assistance for a study conducted in 2007, which surveyed the usage of Telemedicine in Minnesota. http://www.mti.umn.edu/mti.html, (be kind, it was my first web application ever, and it has since been broken by the people maintaining it).
The primary usage, IIRC, was for psychiatric health. In particular, mental health facilities in northern Minnesota seemed to favor this approach; it is much cheaper to employ councilors and "out-source" a MD rather than have a full-time psychiatrist on staff.
Telemedicine may be more cost-effective, but IMHO it will probably be abused and doctors (like radiologists), whom are already very busy, will be pushed even harder. Computer-Aided-Diagonsis tools, like those in existence for detecting microcalcifications in breast tissue, will become essential. Over-worked doctors miss things, and sometimes a computerized second opinion can improve the quality of diagnoses while holding down costs.
DISCLAIMER: I am not in the medical industry, but I did some research as an undergrad on the things mentioned above.
Someone suggested that insurance companies might direct their customers to call center doctors in third-world countries. That's already happening. This is the real world of "telemedicine". This is a real ad:
Doctors needed for a Call Center Jobs in Pakistan
MBBS Doctors needed to work in our Call Center
Contact: Mr. Aftab Ibrahim (aftab@catcos.com)
Mr. Wasif Balouch Ashrafi (wasif@catcos.com)
Or Call on 021-34549291 - 021-34529748
Am I the only one who grasped the dissonance between the words "comes into its own" and "$795 million in grants." Have we really stooped to the point where people have mentally redefined success and functionality as the ability to successfully lobby the government for cash?
You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
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Bush Has Quietly Tripled Aid to Africa
Wasn't a Bush supporter (I hate both D's and R's), but the facts are what they are.