BUSY SIGNALS
August 3, 2001
Busy Signals is a FREE Electronic Newsletter
for TEL/E-HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
"If you don't like the news, go out and make
some."
Tel/E-Health News & Notes From All Over
(reading time....5 minutes max!~~~~value of information....priceless!)
MDLinx is has made available a website/newsletter devoted to the topic of Telehealth/E-Health. As the editor, I will be making DAILY UPDATES to this site as news becomes available. http://www.nplinx.com/index.cfm?subspec_id=549 Go to the site and subscribe to the Telehealth/E-Health Subspecialty Newsletter.
The American Accreditation HealthCare Commission, known as URAC, has released standards for the accreditation of health care Web sites. http://www.urac.org/v1-0.PDF
In the UK, NHS Direct was set up in 1998 and now covers all of England. One site in South East London, which went live in April 1999, has been studied to gain an insight into how NHS Direct is used and by whom. http://www3.oup.co.uk/pubmed/current/230155.sgm.abs.html
ITeleHealth, Inc, located at www.itelehealth.com, announces the opening of its new bulletin board area to promote networking and exchange of ideas and information between individuals interested in telehealth and telemedicine. Current topic areas include telenursing, telehomecare, telehealth equipment, telehealth employment, and telehealth reimbursement.
http://www.itelehealthinc.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi
Medicine has caught up to Hollywood: The FDA approved a tiny camera-in-a-capsule that patients can swallow to give doctors a close-up view of their small intestine. The camera painlessly winds its way through the digestive tract, using wireless technology to beam back colour pictures of the gut. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010802/hl/video_pill_3.html
Interplast, Inc., has administered a Web-based medicine site at http://www.wiredmd.com since July of 1999. A total of 767 cleft malformation cases performed locally by participating host surgeons in the developing world have been reviewed through the site. Additionally, 16 consultations have been posted and discussed by participating surgeons worldwide.
Lab Tests Online: Patients confused by all those cryptic numbers on their lab test results can now go to a Web site that explains them. The site is available at www.labtestsonline.org and it attempts to explain how tests are conducted and what results mean.
NotifyMD, Inc.www.notifymd.com
the nation's largest provider of contact center-based e-communication services
for physicians, and FONEMED www.fonemed.com, a leading provider of
telephone and web-based access to medical advice for nurse triage, medical
information, products and services, announced that the two companies have
entered into a strategic joint development and
distribution agreement.
Note from Victor Kalpokas, MD
Uruguay, South America
As you always say "send in your stuff ", so
I am doing it again. (thank-you!)
Today
I am writing to you in order to make some comments on what happened in my
country concerning an issue related to Medicine & the Internet.
As
part of the Medicine career here in Uruguay, the year before you get your
MD degree there is a period called Internship, where you perform clinical tasks
at Public Health Hospitals, guided by a physician that acts as your tutor.
In
order to get a place to do this internship, you must pass a test, where you are
asked to answer some questions on clinical cases. Since the number of jobs are
limited (approximately 330) usually there are more applicants than places
available. This year 394 medical students took that test.
As
you may imagine, as it is the last test before the final part of the career,
people get really nervous on the day of the test (and I suffered that
too!).
A
teaching tribunal chooses the clinical cases. Due to the fact that is a test,
the questions obviously are kept in the strictest secret by the tribunal. But
this year things went wrong.
The
day after the test some students made a public announcement stating that the
actual test had been available at an internet site, where you can download
previous tests and questions in order to prepare for this test.
Particularly one of the students said that he did not have a computer nor a
place where to access the web, so he had less opportunities to prepare the
test.
Our
Faculty Council verified that this was true and the test was exactly the same
as the one published at the site.
They
finally made the decision of not validating the test as they considered
that not enough guaranties were given to the process. One of the physicians of
the tribunal was taken out of it and a legal process has been started. As
they have to redo the test, many of the 394 medical students have had to return
from outside the country and go through the inconvenience of re-arranging their
holidays, leaving their jobs, etc.
You
can make many conclusions of what happened but sometimes the so-called
universality of the internet may be a 2 edged sword: it may help you in some
ways but may harm you in other. And finally the bad joke of this is that the
second test is to be performed on Friday 13th. Good luck for every one!
WCA’s Tele-Health Task Force Meeting
More
than two dozen leaders from the health and broadband wireless industries met in
Boston on June, 26th for the inaugural meeting of the WCA’s Tele-Health Task
Force, held during WCA’s conference at Boston’s World Trade Center, WCA 2001:
Broadband Now! Task Force Chairman Kenneth Bleakley, President of FONEMED
(www.fonemed.com) and active member of the
WCA, led the inaugural session. The Task Force now seeks chairs and members......For More Information, or to participate in Task
Force initiatives, contact the WCA (Mark Ratchford, Industry Affairs Director, mark@wcai.com) or FONEMED (Jennifer Norberg,
V.P. International, jklein@itelehealthinc.com
)
Other Articles/Sites of Interest
On May 30th, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in
Toronto held its first international telehealth conference with a nursing home
company in Japan. http://www.cyberhealth.bc.ca/Baycrest.htm
High-tech home equipment embraced by diabetes patients http://www.mgh.org/press/feature/hightech.html
Ontonagon patient visits with MGH surgeon via telehealth ‘It saved me from
traveling 240 miles’ http://www.mgh.org/press/feature/telesurg.html
Expectant mothers in Luce and Schoolcraft Counties use telehealth technology to
visit with their nurse http://www.mgh.org/press/feature/expect.html
BusySignals Nurse; the discussion list for telehealth nurses is no longer
available. To join a similar telehealth E-mail discussion list send a
message to: telehealth-subscribe@topica.com This
list is sponsored by iTeleHealth, Inc. located at http://www.itelehealthinc.com
Upcoming events!
Showcase Ontario www.showcaseontario.com
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Trevor
Woodage, Worldwide VP, Clinical Investigations, Celera Genomics, "The
Human Genome and the Future of Technology"
Showcase Ontario is a government of Ontario marketing initiative, now in
its 3rd year. Keynotes include: The Honourable David Tsubouchi, Chair of
Management Board of Cabinet, The Honourable Norman Sterling, Minister of
Consumer and Business Services, Dr. Jerry Mechling, J.F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, Gregory Georgeff, Corporate Chief Information
Officer, Management Board Secretariat. Showcase also features 144 learning
opportunities that encompasses 32 technical labs, 60 workshops, and 48
conference sessions plus 88 government exhibits.The streams are:
Citizen-Centered Government (g2c)
A new way of Doing Business (g2b)
Governments Working Together (g2g)
Enabling e-Government: New Technologies
Showcase Ontario also incorporates the Awards of Excellence Celebration,
established to honour excellence in the use of information technology Contact: Fawn
Annan (416) 290-0240 x171 fannan@itworldcanada.com
Upcoming events!
Teaching about Telehealth and Internet Technologies: Strategies for
Educating Nurses
WHO SHOULD ATTEND: This conference has been designed
for nurse educators and staff developers who presently teach or plan to teach
telehealth and Internet technologies to their students and staff. The
conference is also an excellent source of information for students and nurses
who are especially interested in learning more about telehealth and Internet
technologies.
WHEN: October 5 & 6, 2001
WHERE: The Concourse Airport Hotel and Conference Center, Columbus, Ohio
For a complete schedule of the conference or to learn
more about registering, visit: http://fitne.net/workshop/workshop1.htm
or call toll free 1-800-691-8480
or email jklein@itelehealthinc.com
Information about other telenursing conferences can be
found at http://www.cyberhealth.bc.ca/sitemap.htm
Upcoming events!
TELEHEALTH 2001 e-VOLVING TELEHEALTH: THE NEXT LEVEL
The upcoming 4th Annual Canadian Society of Telehealth
conference is to be held in
Toronto from October 21st to 23rd, 2001.
This conference is geared to all individuals in corporations in the public and
private sectors with an interest in Telehealth and e-Health. For updates of the
program, please visit the new-look CST website at
www.cst-sct.org or E-mail Angela
Nickoloff , Director, Telehealth Programs at the Hospital for Sick
Children in Toronto. angela.nickoloff@sickkids.ca
Telehealth People to Watch: Margaret Larson-Dahn,
MSN, RN
LARSOMA@goodsamhealth.org
Ms. Larson-Dahn is the Health Consultant Director at Good Samaritan Community
Healthcare. She has had 14 years of experience in nursing practice and
administration. As a recent graduate of the Care Management and Health Systems
Administration Program at Pacific Lutheran University School of Nursing, Ms.
Larson-Dahn has applied her knowledge and experience in developing a telephone nursing
practice model. This model has provided a theoretical framework for role
expansion of telephone nurses in the call center, development of competencies,
and quality performance improvement tools. She has presented internationally
and has published several articles in peer reviewed journals.
Larson-Dahn, M. Tel-eNurse Practice: A practice model for role expansion. JONA.
2000;30(11): 519-523.
Abstract of article:
RNs are expanding their role in the continuum of care, incorporating
telecommunication into their practice to provide efficient and effective
patient care. However, role expansion requires the definition and articulation
of nursing practice and related outcomes. The Tel-eNurse Practice Model is a
theoretical framework nurses can use to define and guide the complex process of
care in the telephone encounter. Application of the model gives nurse
administrators a way to identify competencies and develop standards of practice
and quality and outcomes measurement tools
Larson-Dahn, M. Tel-eNurse Practice: Quality of Care and Patient Outcomes.
JONA. 2001;31(3): 145-152.
Abstract of article:
As a growing specialty, telephone nursing practice requires definition,
standardization, and identification of quality indicators and nursing-sensitive
outcomes. An informal study was conducted to explore the relationship between
telephone nursing quality indicators–assessment, critical thinking, use of
protocols, and continuity of care–found in documentation and nursing-sensitive
patient outcomes. Findings provide insight into the telephone process of care
and application of critical thinking reflected in documentation and greater
understanding of the complexity of telephone nursing practice and integration
of care and outcomes.
LAST LINES
This newsletter has been sent to over 800 subscribers.
The publishing dates for 2001 are; on or near August 15, September 1 & 15,
October 1 & 15, November 1 & 15.
Send in your stuff!
Ruth Johnson RN
Busy Signals editor
rjohnson@telus.net
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