On Feb. 25, 2015, vandals cut fiber-optic lines in the Phoenix area, shutting down Internet and phone connections throughout much of northern Arizona. The story was big enough to attract national attention. Here’s a report from CBS News:
“People across northern Arizona couldn't use the Internet, their cellphones or landlines for several hours Wednesday (February 25, 2015) after someone vandalized a fiber-optic line that brings communications to a large part of the state, officials said.
When the UA Wildcats hosted Northern Arizona University at the teams’ 2013 football season opener in Tucson, a new NAU “team member” stood on the sidelines, ready to make a bit of medical history.
VGo – a four-foot-tall telemedicine robot on wheels – was standing by, ready to assist, should any injured player show signs of concussion.
From connected refrigerators that display the latest family photos to connected buttons that instantly place an order for laundry detergent when you press them, the Internet of Things is vast and growing rapidly. Health care is not immune to this new connected fever. Health care leaders and innovators are quickly developing connected health things that offer powerful new ways to care for people.
Like most Americans, Janet Major is thankful today for her family, friends, and all the good things in her life. One of those good things is working at a job she loves.
Janet is associate director for facilities and distance learning outreach for the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP). She’s been with ATP since 1997, when the first telemedicine site was installed at what is now called Maricopa Community Health Center in Nogales, AZ. Janet was on the team that installed it.
Over the past 18 years she has traveled throughout Arizona, helping to grow the ATP network that now links with more than 150 healthcare sites statewide. She also serves as vice chair, and chair elect, of the American Telemedicine Association’s Technology Special Interest Group, and is a board member representing telehealth with the U.S. Distance Learning Association.
Arizona Telemedicine Program's T-Health Institute opened in 2003 on the University of Arizona's Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix. Its mission: to offer telemedicine and telehealth training, and to serve as a prototype e-classroom of the future.
The Institute is fulfilling its mission. More than 20 different organizations have used the amphitheater over the past 12 months, and not all are about medicine and health care.
