The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

During the eleven weeks I worked for the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) this summer, Dr. Ronald S. Weinstein, director for the ATP was fond of telling me that the most rewarding aspect of a summer research project was having the opportunity to publish a paper at the end of it. While I hesitate to argue with one of the most influential leaders in telemedicine, I have to say that being able to truthfully and unironically add “Proficient in Microsoft Excel” to my resume probably tops my list, for now. But in all seriousness, my summer spent building a portfolio of the telehealth-related research projects funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, (PCORI) and being thrown head-first into the world of scientific research and academic literature that I had only imagined during my first year of college in St. Louis, turned out to be one of the most transformative experiences of my admittedly, young life.

Telehealth has taken off in Arizona and nationwide, and policy-makers have been scrambling to keep up. To focus on the policy issues affecting and being affected by the growth of telemedicine and telehealth, the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) and Southwest Telehealth Resource Center (SWTRC) hosted the inaugural Arizona Telemedicine Policy Symposium Sept. 23 in Phoenix.

ATP Director Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, and Arizona Corporation Commission Chairman Robert “Bob” Burns opened the symposium, which attracted more than 120 attendees. The agenda featured an amazing lineup of policy and telehealth leaders discussing recent and exciting changes to telehealth policy and future changes needed. As the emcee, I had a front-row seat to hear about all that is happening—and there’s a lot!

You can put the word "smart" in front of just about anything these days — including an entire city. But what does it actually mean?

The concept of smart cities is incredibly exciting. Cities have always been social, cultural and productive centers of society. But the city of the future will help us work and play even smarter, commute more quickly, and make use of more advanced and affordable products and public services. That includes health care.

As the world explores what smart cities are capable of, we're seeing more ways they'll impact the telemedicine industry and vice versa. Let's take a closer look.

With rates of drug and alcohol addiction at record highs in this country, many people never get the substance abuse treatment they need. Telebehavioral counseling can help close this gap, as a helpful support for people who may need ongoing maintenance therapy during recovery from a substance use disorder (SUD), and as a way to triage and refer clients with more serious addictions to the right rehab provider. But discerning when to refer a client to rehab can be difficult, especially within a telehealth context.

The purpose of keeping a patient in a hospital is to provide all the care they need and send them home when they are ready to take care of themselves. But in some cases, the patient has to be readmitted to a medical facility.

The definition of readmission is simple: it means another inpatient stay that starts within a month from the discharge date of the previous stay. It may be for the same cause of the previous admission, but it may also be unrelated. The readmission doesn’t have to occur at the same hospital to be regarded as such.

For patients, readmissions can be devastating.