Skip to main content

"It is essentially Skype messaging"

Virgin are in my bad books. First they take the NHS in York to the CCP accusing them of predatory pricing because York NHS beat Virgin to a contract by charging lower prices. Then Virgin gain 18 contracts throughout the UK to run anything from community care to sexual services. Worse still, this week, the story broke of their 5 year ill treatment of Virgin Media customers who suffer death. Instead of showing compassion Virgin go on to threaten and abuse the family members left behind to settle unpaid bills.
Associate Professor Bernard Yan using the Telestroke Service.

Now Virgin have teamed up with 7 PCTs in the NHS Lancashire area to help deliver "virtual" or "video" diagnosis. It works as follows. You switch on your camera on your computer, give me a peek & I'll tell you if your gonna have a stroke or not. Well, it is not quite like that since I am not qualified to diagnose, and they'll probably have a proper camera (or a "telekart" as they're calling it) but the basics are the same. A dude will now diagnose you down a camera. This paves the way to reduce expertise on site, to cease the employment of surgeons and simply perform diagnosis remotely. If this technology is beneficial, and it might be, use it on-site. Give the surgeon a hand held interactive device that he can carry whilst moving about the ward. The danger is the off site provision and those occasions when things go wrong.

Now here's the nitty gritty. The cameras will be placed in emergency wards of Lancashire hospitals and used in out of hours services. The whole sheebang comes complete with a help desk. The people behind this project say that its unique selling point is that if the nurse on site cannot use equipment because she has "forgotten" how to use it that this remote video conferencing will be able to help. One might be inclined to ask why there cannot be a doctor on site, and whether the nurse will not so much forget but more be a Health Care Assistant who is not trained or qualified to use the equipment. Either way, the growing use of virtual technology be it virtual wards, or video conferencing should concern us all. As the expert involved explains (I quote) "It is essentially Skype messaging" (see more here).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

clip on magnetic sunglasses visit here

Save with prescription glasses and sunglasses. Prescription eyeglasses with magnetic clip on sunglasses. A wide selection of colors and styles for every budget! -GlassesPoint. Prescription eyeglasses with magnetic clip on sunglasses. A wide selection of colors and styles for every budget! Free magnetic clip on with every pair of glasses.  The operator should contact lens Plano glasses a few days of Sun and Rx on the other person. Many people choose single vision lenses, designed for a specific use, such as prescription sunglasses. Clip-ons magnetic magnetic clip ons often come with their prescription glasses frames. Prescription glasses Goggles4u dollars from 29.99 with free shipping. Takumi neodium magnet glass features recipes that are light, strong and in. The combination of some normal prescription glasses and a pair of polarized glasses that glare-resistant to outdoor activities. clip on magnetic sunglasses visit here
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tragedy of Underfunded Mental Health Care

Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Indicator is   19,900 The NY Times  on Friday had a deeply disturbing article on a murder that stunned the mental health community here in Massachusetts.    A long-term schizophrenic man, off his medicine and spiraling into incoherence, killed a young female counselor who was the sole worker at a group home in a Boston suburb.   His mother, who works at a Boston teaching hospital, was frantic with worry as her adult son, who had been arrested for assault multiple times, was becoming more psychotic.    It was hard for her to get anyone’s attention. The counselor was the first in her family to get a college degree, and had just decided to go to nursing school.    Now she’s dead – and her family had trouble scraping together the resources for a burial.   The schizophrenic will be imprisoned for the rest of his life – which ironically could be the best chance for him to get appropriate medical care. Both...
Post a Comment
Read more

How a Well-Intended FDA Policy on Colchicine is Harming Patients

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The FDA has reaffirmed the truth of this aphorism with its policy about Colchicine. Here's the story: I recently spoke with a friend who has a family member suffering from Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), an auto-inflammatory disorder, most commonly seen in eastern Mediterranean populations. The condition is characterized by recurrent painful inflammation of the abdomen, chest and joints, accompanied by fever. FMF is associated with mutation of a gene on chromosome 16 involved with regulating Pyrin, a protein that is part of the inflammatory response. There is no specific test for the disease. Diagnosis is made on the basis of symptoms, family history, and ruling out other conditions. Since the 1960s, Colchicine, a plant extract first used for treatment of gout two thousand years ago, has been used for treating FMF. As an ancient treatment widely used prior to formation of the FDA, Colchicine did not require FDA approval as a new ...
Post a Comment
Read more