Rifat Latifi, MD, general and trauma surgeon, professor of surgery at the UA and associate director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program, put all that on hold four years ago to direct the only Level One trauma program in Qatar – and to develop new health-care systems in the war-torn part of the world where he was born and grew up.
The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog, Category: Providers
“What was the single most important development in telemedicine, telehealth and/or teleradiology in 2014?”
That question was just posed by a colleague in an email to several telemedicine industry leaders.
Graduate school or full-time job?
That was the question Phyllis Webster was pondering after getting her bachelor’s degree in cultural and biological anthropology from the University of Arizona. In late 1996, she opted for full-time job, as a research specialist with the newly formed Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP).
As CEO of GlobalMed, a world leader in telemedicine innovation operating in more than 35 countries, Joel Barthelemy goes to a lot of conferences. As in a lot.
He thinks the Telemedicine and Telehealth Service Provider Showcase, held Oct. 6 and 7 in Phoenix, may be the first one he’s ever attended in its entirety.
“The information shared was some of the best I’ve ever encountered,” Mr. Barthelemy said, after attending the conference. “There was little commercialism, and the information imparted to us was very valuable. The feedback I received from clinicians who were there was astounding. They truly felt this was a valuable use of their time.”
Mariposa Community Health Center got its start in 1980 as a small clinic in Nogales, Arizona. It has grown over the years to be the largest provider of medical, dental and community-based health promotion and disease prevention services on the Arizona-Mexico border.
And in 1996, the clinic expanded its reach by becoming the first clinical site to link to the Arizona Telemedicine Program.
The decision was not a no-brainer. For many Nogales families, going to see a doctor in Tucson, 60 miles away, was a fun family outing, with lunch and shopping on the side. But for many others, the transportation logistics were next to impossible. For them, telemedicine would be a godsend.
But there were concerns about how well it would work.