Telemedicine Efficacy

COST EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEMEDICINE Studies of the cost effectiveness of telemedicine assess specific applications rather than a broad overview of all aspects of remote health care. Most of the peer‐reviewed research based on large sample sizes and following sound scientific rigor are relatively new, many emerging in the past two years. However, these studies are consistent in finding that telemedicine saves the patients, providers and payers money when compared with traditional approaches to providing care.

TELEMEDICINE AND QUALITY OF CARE There is no difference in the ability of the provider to obtain clinical information, make an accurate diagnosis, and develop a treatment plan that produces the same desired clinical outcomes as compared to in‐person care when used appropriately. Full of empirically grounded studies that conclude diagnostic accuracy and the ability to treat and produce evidenced based outcomes via telemedicine is no different that in‐person care. Many other peer reviewed medical journals indicate the same results from empirical studies.

PATIENT SATISFACTION WITH TELEMEDICINE Patient satisfaction with the use of telemedicine to access care and the use of telecommunications technologies to connect with specialists and other health care providers in order to meet unmet medical needs has always been very high. Degrees of satisfaction may vary slightly with the specialty accessed through telemedicine, but overall satisfaction remains high.

PATIENT SATISFACTION WITH TELEMEDICINE The source of satisfaction for most patients is the ability: to see a specialist trained in the area most closely related to the patient’s condition, the feeling of getting personalized care from a provider who has the patient’s interest in mind, and the ability to communicate with the provider in a very personal and intimate manner over the telecommunications technologies.

PATIENT SATISFACTION WITH TELEMEDICINE very satisfied The current peer reviewed literature on patient satisfaction with accessing health care via telecommunications technologies including interactive video over high and low bandwidths, store‐and‐forward teleconsultations, remote monitoring, and telephone consultations, should undisputable evidence that patients are very satisfied with care provided via telecommunications technologies.

MERCURY TM, C-DAC's Integrated Telemedicine Solution Consider a typical Telemedicine interaction. The Patient goes to a Doctor, who after examination of the patient's file, feels the need for a second opinion. The Doctor then consolidates the relevant clinical data into the patient's Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and then seeks an opinion of the Specialist using Tele-Consultation. A connection to the Specialists Workstation is initiated from the Patient end and the Patient's data is uploaded. The Specialist then examines the data, makes a diagnosis, provides advice, and suggests a course of action. The two Doctors get on to a video-conference to jointly arrive at the diagnosis and the course of treatment. This advice is then transmitted back to the presenting Doctor at Patient end who takes appropriate action.

MERCURY TM This essentially avoids patient discomfort of having to travel to the Specialist's office/ clinic without the Specialist having to visit the patient; this is especially important if the patient is in trauma. Thus right care can be provided at the right place at the right time with minimal discomfort to all concerned. C-DAC's Integrated Telemedicine Solution, Mercury TM, provides an Integrated Solution to make such interactions possible and more. Mercury TM can be used to provide Telemedicine Consultation for various fields of medicine - Tele- Radiology, Tele-Cardiology, Tele-Just-About-Anything.

MERCURY TM Usually the Patient Record (PR) is available in the hardcopy form (papers, celluloid films, ECG strips, etc.). Mercury TM allows the Doctor to quickly put these together into the patients EMR and classify them. Data of various types like celluloid films, hard copies, can be scanned in; ECGs, video-clips of endoscopies, angiographies, etc. can be made a part of the EMR (using direct interface to the devices), as can be audio-clips of electronic stethoscopes, dictations, etc. All such documents and images are stored in an encrypted form.

MERCURY TM Once the EMR is consolidated, the Physician can quickly navigate through the EMR. Mercury TM provides means to view data in a classified form, with a tab for every type of data present e.g. X- Ray, ECG, Reports, Advice, etc. Mercury TM also provides a Catalog view that lists the various documents, images, etc. in the EMR with a short summary. MercuryTM equips the physician with a rich toolset to examine different data. It supports tools to pan, zoom, rotate, mark Regions of Interest (ROI) and annotate the data. Extensive Image Processing features are also provided.

MERCURY TM Consolidated EMRAuthenticated access to EMREasy to install, configure and useComprehensive suite of toolsWell Documented with easy to follow instructions Optimal Bandwidth utilization reduces cost of ownership

MERCURY TM Open Architecture Supports hybrid model of Store & forward and online Interactive Telemedicine Industry Standards Compliant Interfaces with Industry Standard devices like Scanners, Camera, etc. Customization support provided

MERCURY TM Using Mercury TM 's user-friendly interface, the Physician can also quickly add notes on the patient's progress, can create reports, advice, etc. To seek the opinion of a Specialist- using Tele- Consultation, the Doctor can connect to the Specialist's PC from within Mercury TM. The presenting Physician uploads the relevant portions of the EMR to the Specialist PC. They can exchange Text messages using in-built chat facility to confer about aspects that are not brought out by the presented EMR. They can even get into a Video-conference.

MERCURY TM The Advice, Reports, etc. that are the outcomes of the Tele-Consultation are sent back to the Presenting Doctor, to print and pass on to the Patient. There are times when the Specialist / peer would work alone, Mercury TM also provides for offline editing of the EMR and subsequent data upload to the peer.

MERCURY TM DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) support Support for specific HL7 messaging Customized generation and printing of forms that include various parameters, reports, etc. Specific authentication support including Smart cards, Biometrics, etc. Integration with existing HIS, PACS (Picture archiving and communication system) or other Clinical Support System Interface with various specialty devices