Advantages of a video conferencing to health care

Video quickly becomes one of the most effective remedies of communication and the organization of collective work in the modern world, and the health care is not an exception. Technologies of the organization of collective work help health facilities of different value to provide to patients access to the best medical care regardless of time and distance. It allows to achieve the best results of treatment, to increase efficiency of the organizations of health care, to reduce costs and that the most important – to improve interaction between all participants of medical process.

Improvement of results of treatment

Time — one of the main factors of risk in health care. For example, for patients with a stroke an opportunity to get advice of the specialist and to begin treatment within three hours after the beginning of an attack gives hope for an absolute recovery while the delay can turn back irreversible effects, recovery in that case can last for the rest of the life. Video conference allows doctors to ask in remote regions for the help specialists from the medical centers, without spending time for transportation of the patient.

Increase in availability of treatment, including specialized

Medical institutions in the region where the patient lives, not always locate opportunities for rendering all necessary assistance. Installation of mobile application for video conference allows patients not to go by the smartphone, the tablet or the home computer far for receiving consultation of leading specialists. Communication "confidentially" in real time on a high-quality communication gives the chance to contact the specialist from where it is necessary. Lower an example of how dialysis at home with support of medical staff by video conference increases quality of life of patients in Great Britain.

Increase in efficiency

Little in what industry more information and research data, than in health care is available to specialists. Elimination of the obstacles created by distance using video conference gives to doctors the chance to meet the advanced practicians, new and innovation methods of treatment and also to work together on the solution of the major problems of health care, such, for example, as care of elderly people. Video conference — a great way of performance improvement of health facilities worldwide, effective and promoting fast involvement of people in joint work process.

Reduction of percent of repeated hospitalization and acceleration of recovery

Video conference already helps medical institutions to reduce sickness rate, repeatedly asking for the help because of a disease recurrence that is especially important in terms of today's standards of health care. Using video conference of the nurse can make to the written-out patient recommendations, and then control their accomplishment. Thanks to regular interaction with the patient out of walls of hospital doctors and nurses can watch more carefully the course of recovery and timely predict a possible recurrence.

Help to patients in the remote areas

Expansion of a range of services of health care and delivery of health care to all persons in need becomes a serious problem, so far as concerns rural areas and the remote areas. Thanks to video conference profile medical specialists from the health facilities which are in the large cities can service inhabitants of rural areas and the remote areas. The GCS e-Santé Picardie organization in France helps the aging population of rural areas of Picardy to cope with the shortage of medical institutions and difficulties with involvement of new doctors.

Economy where it is the most necessary

Medical institutions constantly look for methods of increase in efficiency and improvement of care of patients even in the conditions of the limited budget. Solutions of video conference promote that workers of health care are capable to help patients with different regions, for example, observing jointly one patient and separating obligations for his treatment for the purpose of increase in productivity of work. Closer cooperation of specialists of the different directions of health care helps to save from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars which can be directed to new programs, techniques or technologies. The Swedish government agency Norrbottens Läns Landsting (NLL) solves problems of the organization of high-quality medical care in very big, but sparsely populated territory.

Health facilities apply solutions of video of cooperation with the purpose of improvement of process of treatment and cost reduction worldwide. The solutions of video conference for health care proposed by Polycom give the chance to create multi-profile medical crews, to pay attention maximum to patients, to minimize percent of unnecessary repeated hospitalization, besides, they provide close interaction of all specialists occupied in the course of treatment regardless of where they are.

Examples

Remote dialysis in Great Britain

The trust fund of National medical authorities of Great Britain in cooperation with Imerja company and Polycom organized holding a procedure of dialysis for residents of the Counties of Lancashire and the Southern Cumbria at home and also rural areas in a radius of 160 km around them. Process is constructed as follows. In the beginning the health worker meets the patient and teaches his technique of carrying out dialysis. Then show to the patient how to use a visual communication system, and give the chance to train in carrying out self-dialysis in medical institution until the patient is not ready to independent accomplishment of the procedure in house conditions. At this stage the nurse helps the patient, giving advice by voice and video conference. Medics remotely control the procedure course, if necessary enlarging the image of the patient on the screens. During each procedure electronic condition monitoring of the patient is conducted, there is a permanent fixing and data recording. It provides stable obtaining information necessary for correction of treatment and control of a disease. The main advantage consists that patients to whom the procedure of dialysis is shown and their families living in rural areas can go much less often to hospital now and by that to save time.

Effective help to elderly patients in Italy

Elleuno is the organization which is engaged in coordination of full range of services of medical and social character, rendered by more than 70 organizations of Italy. Services of Elleuno play the increasing and big role in life of elderly Italians, children and patients with Alzheimer's disease. For ensuring smooth operation of Elleuno it was required to provide constantly training of employees at 50 offices across all Italy.

The new environment of communications and collective work constructed based on Microsoft Lync 2013 and also solutions of voice and video conference for Lync developed by Polycom became the solution. This integrated environment allows 2,300 employees of Elleuno to communicate face to face on audio and video conference of high definition and also to quickly make decisions thanks to joint work with data in real time. The organization is going to expand video conference use, having connected the central governing bodies, leaving specialists and patients.

Reduction of time of operations in Great Britain

The London hospital "Evelina" — one of the leading centers of a children's heart surgery in Great Britain. Annually there 100,000 children, from them 6,000 with heart troubles are treated. Thanks to the latest equipment and the highest quality of treatment of cardiological diseases the clinic gained the international recognition: here direct patients from around the world. The most important means of clinical diagnostics in cardiology is the echocardiography: its use is the integral condition of successful carrying out transaction. Together with Polycom IT department of Evelina hospital implemented technologies of video conference in operational hospitals. Cardiologists can browse echocardiographic pictures in real time now, discuss them with colleagues in real time that allows to make quickly weighed decisions which are buttressed up by facts and to reduce transaction time to 5 minutes. As a result it helps to attract to diagnosis of the most experienced doctors and reduces an amount of time which the patient carries out under anesthetic that, as we know, accelerates recovery. Time of doctors is at the same time much more effectively used. In general the hospital saves about 1,300 hours of therapists and surgeons a year, apart from saving of time of nurses and other personnel.

Help to inhabitants of rural areas in France

In the region Picardy in the north of France the shortage of medical institutions caused by aging of the population in rural areas and difficulties with attraction to the region of new health workers is observed. In Amiens, the main town of Picardy, there is the Central university hospital in which the great number of doctors and medical personnel works, however in rural areas there are catastrophically enough neither therapists, nor doctors of narrow specialties because of what the request for medical care becomes a problem for inhabitants. The CGS e-Santé Picardie company developed the telemedicine COMEDI-e platform for the solution of this problem. GCS e-Santé Picardie is engaged in upgrade of technology infrastructure and aims to make telemedicine the daily instrument of diagnostics and treatment. GCS e-santé Picardie actively works on providing therapists and patients with the video conference necessary for carrying out consultations with doctors of different specialties. The ultimate goal of the company — to make video conference usual and universal. As a result today in Picardy telemedicine is even more often applied in the most different spheres of medical and medical assistant's practice, from primary medical care before complex treatment of serious diseases.

Cost-efficient medical care in Sweden

Norrbottens Läns Landsting (NLL) is the regional government agency which is responsible for health care in the northern region of Sweden which area is more than 98,000 km ², and the population - less than 250,000 people. The most part of the region is beyond Arctic Circle and is characterized in the long, cold winters and extremely severe weather conditions. NLL include five hospitals, 31 treatment and prevention facilities and 32 dental clinics. In total in NLL network nearly 6500 people work. The organization of personal contact between the doctor and the patient in similar geographical conditions — a difficult task, however NLL was succeeded to find its solution and to provide to citizens full medical care.

In NLL video conference is completely integrated into a daily rhythm of work and communication of employees. Administrative conferences and consultations, consultation of patients, lectures and other actions of educational character, maintaining patients after the statement, advanced training of medical personnel — all this is under construction on the Polycom RealPresence platform. In process of improvement and increase in availability of NLL technology continues to find for it new application and to implement new initiatives. RealPresence Mobile application testing is conducted: issue to patients in temporary use tablets which they will apply during treatment at home, or suggest to load the application on the personal tablets.

By estimates of NLL, in 2010 due to failure from a part of business trips and labor costs connected with it more than 8 million Swedish kronur (1.1 million US dollars) were saved. Replacement of trips to short distances with video conference sessions also had positive ecological effect: reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide by 350 tons. In 2011 the total duration of the sessions of video conference held to NLL networks was about 20,000 hours — 8000 watch more, than in 2010.

Шаблон:Subject Medicine