Video conferencing for Mental Health

Here's Video conferencing being used for Mental Health. As many of us know, obtaining mental health services can be a challenge, especially for people in remote areas. There is a tremendous need for mental health services among the veteran population, especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans sometime forgo mental health services due to lack of availability of these services. Telemedicine has made it possible for these veterans to obtain this crucial services in a convenient manner. As a result, veterans who did not seek help earlier, are now getting care.

Facebook's Data Model

I find data models and scalability design for popular applications, such as facebook and Linkedin to be quite fascinating.
Here is the data model of facebook, which has been reverse engineered.

Here is the Data API documentation.

Some thoughts on the data model, and the power using associations.

Telemedicine in the Pediatric ICU

Video conferencing is being used in treating Pediatric patient at the Mass General Pediatric ICU:

"The attending physician can then see the patient, talk with clinicians on-site, personally evaluate the child's condition and make treatment decisions."

"The attending physician can then see the patient, talk with clinicians on-site, personally evaluate the child's condition and make treatment decisions. Special cameras and scopes can also be attached to the hospital-based unit to allow for closer evaluation of the patient."

"Because the attending physician can remotely examine the patient and communicate with the on-site staff directly, decision making can be enhanced and the quality of care improved."

Partners Connected Health is using Video conferencing telemedicine technology to deliver physician resources example how this technology can used to improve access to high value services. Nursing homes are another health care setting that can benefit from delivering remotely located physician resources on as demand basis. Nursing homes typically struggle to have adequate physician coverage on site and can certainly benefit fromthis technology

Top 50 Healthcare IT blogs

Health Sensei has released its list of the 50 Healthcare IT blogs. I'm honored to be included in this list among some highly distinguished blogs.

Telemedicine for Diabetic Teaching

This study demonstrated that diabetic teaching using via video conferencing based telemedicine was as effective as in-person teaching in improving control and patient satisfaction.

The advantage that diabetic teaching via telemedicine offers over the traditional face to face encounter, is the ability to deploy essential diabetic teaching across a wider region, thus solving the problem of access that many patients face.

Ideally, I envision that a patient should be able to visit their physician , and then from the same office visit, access the diabetic trainer via the video conferencing. Toward the end of the session, the patient and the remotely located diabetic educator would do a recap with the physician in order to insure the everyone is on the same page. This would be a way to decrease the level of fragmentation that can exist in diabetic care when multiple providers are involved.

The results of the study are listed below:

RESULTS—Patient satisfaction was high in the telemedicine group. Problem Areas in Diabetes scale scores improved significantly with diabetes education (adjusted P <>_1c improved from 8.6 ± 1.8% at baseline to 7.8 ± 1.5% immediately after education and 7.8 ± 1.8% 3 months after the third educational visit (unadjusted P <>P = 0.089 adjusted for BMI and age), with similar changes observed in the telemedicine and in-person groups.

Telemedicine results in few tests and greater patient satisfaction

http://news.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-2/Telemedicine-could-offer-fewer-follow-up-tests-and-greater-satisfaction-for-patients-7867-1/

How to Achieve Meaningful Use

See this easy to understand article summarizing meaningful use.