Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association
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The purpose of this project was to test the efficacy of behavioral telemedicine interventions designed to teach self-regulation skills to chronic pain patients who had not previously been treated. The study sought to determine whether there were differences in outcome and consumer satisfaction with the pain management intervention when delivered by conventional face-to-face methods, by telephone only, and by closed circuit TV (CCTV). ⋯ Thus, it is not known at this time how well the intervention can be generalized to other clinicians. In addition, there was no control on the administration of the protocols across conditions.
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The costs for polysomnography (PSG) and alternative diagnostic procedures for sleep-disordered breathing are challenging public health care systems. We wanted to determine if a telemedicine protocol with online transfer of PSGs from a remote site could be cost-effective and clinically useful while improving patient access to full PSG. Fifty-nine PSGs were performed in 54 pulmonary patients with suspected sleep-disordered breathing at a remote hospital. ⋯ A savings of $550 per study was realized with the telemedicine protocol. The online transfer of PSGs from a remote site to a centralized sleep laboratory is technically feasible and clinically useful. Telemedicine offers an effective alternative for cost reduction in sleep medicine while improving patient access to specialized care in remote areas.
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Many rural sites cannot afford a digitizer to digitize radiographic films and transmit them via a telemedicine network for review by a radiology specialist. This project tested the feasibility of using a consumer digital still camera to photograph radiographic images and transmit them via a telemedicine network to a consulting hub site. In this study, the feasibility of using a digital camera to photograph plain film radiographs of 40 bone trauma cases from a rural health center in Arizona was tested. ⋯ Image quality was generally rated as excellent to good in both viewing conditions. Cases that did not correlate well were judged to have poor image quality, or diagnoses were based on photographs that had part of the diagnostic region of interest cropped off. It was determined that a digital still camera can be used effectively in many cases to photograph radiographic images for transmission and viewing via a telemedicine network, as long as adequate views, zoomed in regions of interest, and good quality original films are used in the acquisition process.