The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

Greg Hales used to really dislike going to the doctor.

“I didn’t dislike the doctor,” he says. “I just really disliked having to listen to whatever terrible news or reality show was blaring from the TV in the waiting room. It was so unpleasant. Then one day I thought, ‘Why don’t I just do something about this?’ That was when I set about creating a series of waiting room video loops, which play in North Country waiting rooms across the system."

The boy's eyes are captivated by the voice of the woman in the white starched coat. She seems to be speaking directly to them from the television screen. His mother's face relaxes for the first time in weeks as she holds him and repeats in a soft voice as if to convince herself, "The quarantine is over."

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Although not a current reality, medicine has entered the digital age, and this scene may be tomorrow's reality.

Did you know that there are more than 75,000 health care professionals on Twitter? That 41 percent of consumers are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online forums to select health care providers? Or that social media can help track the spread of fast-moving illnesses like influenza?

When you think of social media in health care, you might think it’s all about marketing. But experts agree, it goes beyond that.

Farris Timimi, medical director for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, said that social media in health care is a "moral obligation.”

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.”

Academic medical centers scrambling for research dollars should look beyond the limited resources of the NIH to other funding sources – in particular, the Department of Defense.

That’s the advice of Col. (Ret.) Ronald K. Poropatich, MD, executive director for the Center for Military Medicine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, who visited the Arizona Health Sciences Center earlier this year as the inaugural Arizona Telemedicine Program Visiting Professor.