Doctors have been roundly criticized for ordering too many sophisticated, expensive tests. But surprisingly, the growth of advanced diagnostic imaging in Medicare patients dipped to single-digit rates starting in 2006, even among those whose scans were paid for by private insurance, according to a study from the August issue of Health Affairs, as reported by Kate Madden Lee, who notes that other studies confirm medical imaging's slowdown. Whether doctors are indeed ordering fewer tests, and patients getting less unnecessary imaging, was not confirmed in the study, which some say was incomplete.
The goal is superb. That is, to let healthcare providers across states have seamless electronic access to patient information for better treatment and outcomes. Then reward doctors who set up the digital records to do it. Fine so far. But what if one doctor’s system doesn’t connect with another's, or a hospital’s? Now you’ve got the picture of just what’s happening in healthcare today. “Today, each hospital, doctor’s office and physician practice selects health information technologies (HIT) to solve the challenges they see, at a price point they can afford,” writes Keith Figlioli, the senior vice president of healthcare informatics for the Premier healthcare alliance, a national performance improvement alliance of more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals and 84,000 other healthcare sites, at forbes.com.
Now it’s heart stents, used in surgeries that help doctors avoid the radiation they’re currently exposed to through x-rays they take for guidance, as well as the back pain that comes from constantly bending over a patient on the operating table – not to mention the stress that can cause orthopedic problems, cataracts and even cancer, according to a recent Catheterization and Cardiovascular Intervention journal article.
We’re talking, of course, about robots and all the amazing things they are now doing besides vacuuming your floors.
InTouch Health (News - Alert) and iRobot announced a new telemedicine robot to help doctors connect and treat patients – even when they’re not in the room. Named RP-VITA, or Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant, this robot will let doctors check up on patients remotely, according to Jenny Wilson at smartplanet.com. Doctors will do this by chatting with patients over a video screen, “as if they were having a Skype (News - Alert) conversation,” Wilson writes. The solution has cameras, microphones, 3-D mapping sensors, and a stethoscope. The robot can transmit and receive video, audio, and navigation directions. RP-VITA can also take measurements by connecting to other devices like otoscopes and ultrasound.
What if, when you were in the hospital, all your doctor appointments treatments, procedures, or tests expected to last more than 30 minutes were automatically scheduled by a computer? And better yet, you were informed of the exact time, ahead of time? It’s called “smart room technology,” and it hopes that by adding predictability and structure to hospital stays it will alleviate some of the stress and result in better outcomes. Three hospitals in the Sentara healthcare network in Virginia now plan and schedule all inpatient procedures through Sentara eCare, the hospital system’s electronic medical record (EMR) to allow patients to better plan their stay, according to a press release. All Sentara Hampton Roads hospitals are expected to have this component of smart room technology by fall, Prue Salasky reports.
