The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

Online Course: “Developing Telemedicine Services”

Open Enrollment

The national award-winning Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP), headquartered at the University of Arizona Health Sciences in Tucson, Arizona, will conduct a major, online training program regarding the COVID-19 pandemic for health-care providers, administrators, and educators, titled: “Developing Telemedicine Services,” on Monday, March 23, 2020.  “Telemedicine is a key capability for healthcare providers and the community they serve to slow the spread of the COVID-19,” notes Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, a pioneer in telemedicine and founding director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program. The ATP has been producing in-person telemedicine and telehealth training programs for the past 20 years. Thousands of individuals, from hundreds of healthcare organizations, have attended these programs and given them high marks.  “Now, in response to the COVID-19 pardemic, we are taking the course online for the first time.”  He added,  “Obviously, this will open the session to a far larger audience, filling an urgent need at this time.”

The program will be presented in two 3-hour blocks. 9:00 a.m. until 12 noon, and 1:00 p.m. until 4 p.m.  It is given in a Zoom webinar format, providing the opportunity for questions and answers.  

Arizona’s strength in rural is our many partnerships.  Arizona is the 6th largest state in the U.S. by area, and over 81.8 percent of all Arizona land is state, federal or tribal controlled; there is a lot of area to cover.  Plus, there is a lot of great work going on in all regions of Arizona, and we thought “let’s share this, let’s go on a “Virtual Road Trip” Via a webinar.  We reached out to folks and before we knew it, 12 groups volunteered to share their vision. 

And on November 21, 2019, we started our “Virtual Road Trip” in Tucson. 

Technology has disrupted every atom of our society, and medicine is no exception. Through the practice of telemedicine, experts can now expand their user base and grow their business, while patients can get quicker access to healthcare than ever before.

However, the applications of telemedicine in practice have not been well-marketed enough, resulting in the public being under-informed. That’s why the burden of proof, explaining the concept and actually selling the service comes down to telemedicine professionals themselves.

The point of this article is to offer medical professionals ideas to market themselves better and inform their patients about this alternative way of examining them from a distance.

Telemedicine services are rapidly expanding, with many providers realizing that they can expand their reach and revenue by utilizing improved connectivity and convenient technology. Telemedicine takes several forms, including consultation directly in the office, school-based consultation to provide emergency services to students, home video consultations, and even integration of biometric data from a person’s health wearables. While telemedicine is indeed beneficial for all stakeholders, it is equally important for providers to make sure they are well-versed with the entire process before they step into it. In order to offer effective primary care and enable truly coordinate care, providers must consider all the planning element that are part of successful telemedicine ventures.

Here are the important steps to be taken care of when starting telemedicine.

We’ve seen enormous changes in the healthcare industry in recent years, mostly relating to the more efficient storage and usage of patient data through blockchain technology and the digitisation of patient files.

In the past two decades, the growing penetration of technology in the industry has yielded new medical devices, automated treatments, and improved diagnostic processes, giving doctors, scientists and patients renewed hope for the treatment of diseases some of which, until now, have been largely untreatable.

Using telehealth technology still requires good bedside manners - just call it your screenside or webside manners. So what do providers need to know that is different between an in-person encounter compared to a telehealth encounter?  The space involved with making that first impression via telehealth is significantly smaller than meeting in-person in a clinical setting.  Besides being two-dimensional, your space is limited to the size and quality of the monitor projecting your image on the other end of the connection.  You only get one chance to make a first impression – so make it good.

The United States Distance Learning Association, founded in historic Boston in 1987, has grown to become the nation’s leading distance-learning organization.

The USDLA’s members are talented professionals from around the world. They network and share best practices with literally every distance learning constituency, including telehealth; corporate training; basic and higher education; home schoolers; continuing education, government programs, advances in technology, and more. Members collaborate in person and from a distance, with all available modalities, with expertise in videoconferencing, webinars and online learning.  

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