Telemedicine Updates

> USDLA Awards ATP with the Silver Award For             Excellence in Distance Learning in 2007

Dr. Paul Gordon and Dr. Tejal Parikh from the Department of Family and Community Medicine (FCM) in the College of Medicine won the 2007 Silver Award for Best Practices in Distance Learning Programming from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA).  Drs. Gordon and Parikh received their award Monday at the USDLA annual meeting in Kansas City. 

This award acknowledges their unique efforts of coordinating the Rural Faculty Development Fellowship and it is truly an honor bestowed by their peers in higher education distance learning.  The Rural Faculty Development Fellowship Series was designed for rural preceptors in the state of Arizona who are involved with the FCM clerkship, fourth year electives, and Rural Health Professions Program using the telemedicine network.  This has enabled faculty who were previously unable to participate to improve their teaching skills and it has also enabled the College of Medicine to further expand our network of rural teachers.

Monthly speakers on a wide variety of topics help accomplish many of the goals of the College of Medicine from minority recruitment to enhancing the desire of graduating physicians to practice medicine in the rural corners of our state.  The program has been supported for the past 6 years through a federal training grant from HRSA and by the Arizona Telemedicine Program and many of its network affiliates including the Indian Health Service (IHS) and the Northern Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authority (NARBHA).  Technically, the program is produced by Janet Major, Technical Coordinator for the Arizona Telemedicine Program and Distance Program Coordinator for Biomedical Communications.

> International Training Grant

Rifat Latifi, MD, Associate Director, Telesurgery and International Affairs

Rifat Latifi, M.D., Associate Director, Telesurgery and International Affairs for the Arizona Telemedicine Program is the Principal Investigator for a new grant from the U.S. Department of State to the Kosova Foundation for Medical Development. The project is multi-faceted, bringing healthcare personnel to the United States for advanced training in Trauma care, sending US professionals to teach continuing education courses in Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania, providing equipment for four telemedicine facilities in Kosova and delivering online course content to the region.

This grant will also bring 24 healthcare professionals (medical personnel, technical personnel, medical students and hospital administrative staff) in groups of six to Tucson for training in Telemedicine, e-health and the Virtual Medical Library. Staff of the Telemedicine Program and the Arizona Health Sciences Library will provide five days of training. Classes will cover the principles and practice of telemedicine, an introduction to telemedicine equipment and training in information retrieval and evidence-based medicine.

>Native American Cardiology Program’s Dr. Eric Brody Receives National Distance Education Award

Dr. Eric Brody of the Native American Cardiology Program conducts a teaching session of "EKG Jeopardy" to multiple sites on the Arizona Telemedicine Program Network

The Arizona Telemedicine Program is pleased to announce that Dr. Eric A. Brody has received the 2005 Excellence in Teaching Award – Gold Level-Online Telehealth from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) for his innovative “EKG Jeopardy” distance education approach to teaching with the Native American Cardiology Program.  Dr. Brody’s novel videoconference approach is modeled after the popular television game show and generates enthusiasm for learning complex cardiology concepts among his students at a variety of Arizona sites.  Dr. Brody received this prestigious award at the USDLA Annual Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles on October 17, 2005.

The USDLA news release states that the “Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching award recognizes an outstanding individual who has creatively utilized the medium to inspire learning in a given subject.  The recipients have all taught a course, series, or unit in a distance-learning format with an imaginative approach to the material, well-designed visuals, and a demonstrated rapport with the participants.”

>Arizona Telemedicine Program Showcased at White House
Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) at AHSC, demonstrated the latest Web-based technologies for expanding and enhancing health care and distance-education at the White House early last month. Ana Maria Lopez, MD, MPH, medical director of ATP, also participated.

Recognized as the premier telemedicine program in the nation, the Arizona Telemedicine Program was invited to participate in a White House-hosted meeting of the Federal Interagency Medical Directors, a group composed of medical directors from the White House, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI and other federal agencies.

Dr. Weinstein presented information on two innovative projects being developed in Arizona: eHealthU and UltraClinics(tm).

• eHealthU, sponsored by the Four Corners Telehealth Consortium, which Dr. Weinstein directs, is a Web portal that will provide a variety of health-related training programs and telehealth services over the Internet. Using the latest in Web-based technologies to expand and enhance distance-education programs, this project is part of the Arizona Telemedicine Program's new Institute for Advanced Medicine and Telehealth (THealth), which will be headquartered on the College of Medicine's Phoenix campus. Dr. Weinstein says that e-HealthU, partnering with THealth, also will provide state agencies a means to collaborate on various programs in disease prevention, public education, correctional telemedicine, children's health care and home-health nursing. Among other benefits, this approach will increase access to teaching and training for geographically underserved populations. THealth recently received a $1.2 million federal earmark to support its program.

• The UltraClinics(tm) concept is an example of "the next generation of health-care delivery systems," Dr. Weinstein says. It links the latest in information and medical imaging technologies with "virtual" group practices to provide more efficient clinic visits. The potential impact is in the improvement in quality of health care and a reduction in costs by providing "one-stop shopping" when patients make clinic visits. University Physicians Healthcare Hospital at Kino Campus will serve as the national "test-bed for rapid throughput clinics," in collaboration with the Arizona Telemedicine Program and THealth.

>A Life Saved through New Teletrauma Service
On Sunday, November 21, 2004, doctors used the new teletrauma connection between the Emergency Room at Southeast Arizona Medical Center in Douglas and the Emergency Department at University Medical Center to save a young child’s life.  A bad car crash near Douglas left three persons dead and an 18 month old baby with severe trauma to the head, and multiple fractures. 

Dr. Rifat Latifi, at the University Medical Center Emergency Department in Tucson, directs the care of a severe trauma patient at the Southeast Arizona Medical Center in Douglas using the new teletrauma system.

   The new teletrauma system utilizing the Arizona Telemedicine Program Network was activated.  In Tucson, Dr. Rifat Latifi, Associate Director, Telesurgery and International Affairs, and a skilled trauma surgeon, utilized the teletrauma connection to provide direct supervision to the local Douglas physician, Dr. Tanvir, through multiple interventions, including intubations, the delivery of blood products and large amounts of IV fluids.  In short, Dr. Latifi was able to be in the Douglas emergency room “virtually” to guide the patient’s treatment.  As a result, the baby was stabilized enough to transport to Tucson and placed in the ICU where her condition is stable and she is expected to live.  Later in the day, Dr. Latifi sent an email to his colleagues summarizing what had occurred and with great pride concluded, “If we had not had this connection today that child would have died.”  Dr. Latifi hopes to expand the teletrauma system network to many other Arizona communities in need of this life-saving capability.  In addition to saving lives, the system is expected to save the great costs involved in transporting trauma patients unnecessarily.  The teletrauma system is in service through a generous loan from Visual Telecommunications Network, Inc.( ViTel Net).

> Arizona Achieves Number One Status in Telemedicine
Arizona has two nationally recognized telemedicine programs that partner in providing a variety of telehealth and distance learning services. The Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) provides a broad spectrum of telehealth services, including telepsychiatry, whereas the Northern Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authority (NARBHA) provides telebehavioral health services through mental health centers. Both programs have received national awards. To date, the ATP has won seven national awards as a top program, as a major provider of distance education over a telemedicine network, and for telehealth research. NARBHA received three awards as a top program. Arizona leads the nation in number and variety of national awards as outstanding telemedicine programs.

> Telemedicine Saves Millions of Dollars for Arizona
Cost savings for Arizona by the state’s telemedicine programs are occurring in many ways. The cost of transporting prisoners to distant clinics has saved over a million dollars while increasing public safety. Expensive medical air transports of Native Americans have been drastically reduced. Between July and December, 2003 RBHAnet saved about $106,000 by reducing travel time of its psychiatrists. Travel for continuing edu­cation of professionals is reduced. The Federal Government has offset telecommunications costs for health care in Arizona totaling $2,600,000.

> Telemedicine Benefits Thousands of Arizona Patients
Cost-effective health care services are being delivered to many rural and urban populations in Arizona by telemedicine. Today, radiology is available 24/7 in many rural communities, an unprecedented level of service. This helps keep patients in their local communities for the health care and contributes to the survival of rural hospitals. Obtaining appointments with dermatologists can take months in Tucson and Phoenix but are available the same week in rural communities using telemedicine. Mental health services are now widely available throughout greater Arizona using telemedicine. Numbers of telemedicine cases are increasing at a rapid rate.

> Prison Telemedicine Promotes Public Safety in Arizona
The Arizona Department of Corrections is a charter member of the Arizona Telemedicine Program. Today, over 80 percent of specialty medical consultations take place behind prison walls with the specialists located off-site in one of four locations.

Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) doctor at the ADC headquarters in Phoenix prepares to interview a prisoner at the prison in Yuma, by telemedicine. The doctor in Phoenix serves as the “gatekeeper” and decides if the prisoner requires the care of a medical specialist. Over 50 percent of requests for services can be met by telemedicine in-house at significant cost savings by reducing the use of outside specialists. Before telemedicine, more patients were unnecessarily referred to specialists.

St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson has been a major service provider for the Department of Corrections for over 20 years. Prior to 1997, whenever prisoners needed to be seen by specialists, they were physically transported in vans or buses under tight security to protect public safety. Escapes were a constant concern. Now, St. Mary’s physicians can see the patients by telemedicine without regard to distance. The physicians can listen to heart sounds using the same electronic stethoscopes used in the NASA space program. High-resolution otoscopes are used to look at eardrums. Psychiatric consultations take place by video conferencing. If additional specialists are needed, University Medical Center, in Tucson, and Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix have additional providers on call. All 10 Arizona rural prisons are linked to the network. Prisoners often prefer to receive their health care services by telemedicine since sick people prefer to avoid being transported. Prisoner grievances concerning their health care have gone down, saving the Department of Corrections legal costs. Over 8,000 prisoner teleconsultations have been completed to date, at a cost savings of over $1,000,000.

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