Telemedicine Usage Exploding–eICU, daVinci Robotic Surgery

James Geiger M.D.–

Get Healthier using your Mobile Smart Phone

Smart phones are evolving rapidly. One day there may well be an specialized application (APS) for everything. Some of the health care oriented APS, include Mobile Phone Click Diagnostics offering a wide variety of consultations services and Airstrip OB which can monitor fetal heart rate and maternal contractions. Major medical concerns can be facilitated, like medication compliance of infectious disease patients with programs like Stop TB. Patients can be given a cell phone, touch speed dial and the SIM mediprogram by CompuTrainer verifies that they took their dose of medication. Diabetics and patients with psychiatric disorders can monitored using multidisciplinary protocols which improve outcomes.

The Department of Public Health in Arizona offers STOMP Stop Smoking over Mobile Phones from Health Phone solutions. STOMP has some great statistics to support the success of the program. STOMP sends smokers trying to quit a series of personalized text messages over 26 weeks. This next-generation service uses text messages based on a clinically-developed program with proven medical efficacy and offers several interactive features. Clinical trials have shown that using STOMP doubled reported quit rates from 13% to 28% after six weeks.

There are many more APS available now which are flashed onto Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed plus many more to be created, many of which will include video.

Digital Telemedicine Services

Telemedicine has improved health care in underserved areas of the world. The American Telemedicine Association defines the use of telemedicine as the exchange of medical information from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients’ health status. Telemedicine was first pioneered and adopted by the Department of Defense for ships at sea and later implemented into the Veterans Affairs system and Indian Health Service.

The digital age of medicine offers radically expanding methods of diagnosis and treatment. Digitized signals can be broadcast live so that physicians can remotely monitor intensive care units in other hospitals, worldwide and treat them as one electronic intensive care unit (eICU) or provide daVinci robotic surgery remotely. Critical care specialists and surgeons trained to use computers monitoring vital signs and laboratory values of critically ill patients can make interventions rapidly and remotely. Healthcare in the 21st century is facing challenges digitally head-on.

Dr. James L. Geiger is a board certified anesthesiologist practicing acute care anesthesia and clinical aromatherapy in Arizona. He completed residency at USC and Internship at St. Mary’s Center in San Francisco where he remained to perform cardiac anesthesia with his father, a Cardiothoracic surgeon, for 16 years. At St. Mary’s he developed and lectured on Fast Track Cardiac Anesthesia programs for early recovery from anesthesia and was chairman of the critical care committee. Currently Dr. Geiger is on staff at several medical centers, orthopedic hospitals and surgicenters where he has introduced therapy with essential oils into the operating and recovery rooms. Dr Geiger’s special interest is consulting in the development of patient services for Integrative Therapies and Medical Spa services which care for the needs of those seeking integrative treatments. Dr. Geiger’s speaking presentations are suitable for conventions, resorts, spas and business meetings worldwide. He is the author of The Sweet Smell of Success: Health and Wealth Secrets (LifeSuccess Publishing/ Feb 2009).