U.S. Should Lead World in Developing Connected Healthcare Technology, Genachowski Says
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The U.S. should lead the world in developing technologies and devices to improve healthcare and reduce its costs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Thursday. “There are many areas in which we need to lead,” he said in a discussion of telemedicine at Children’s Hospital Oakland. “This is absolutely one of them.” The opportunity is great to improve services, reduce costs and create new jobs, he said, calling it a “triple win.” Genachowski said seizing this chance is one of his priorities. Under an expanded health-connectivity subsidy that will provide $400 million to help connect hospitals to broadband, the FCC will give the California Telehealth Network a $22.1 million grant, he said. The first installment, $2.5 million, is being approved to be spent as soon as possible, he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Connecting healthcare centers is critical to exploiting the benefits of telemedicine, Genachowski said. “We worry about a world in which we succeed in moving records from paper to electronic, but we've forgotten to connect all the hospitals and clinics and doctors and patients that need to be connected,” he said. “Tackling the connectivity issue as we move toward electronic healthcare records is essential if we're going to get the healthcare benefits and cost savings of doing that."
There are challenges to adopting telemedicine, said Ronald Cohen, a radiologist at the hospital. The protection of records from computer viruses and privacy breaches needs to be ensured, he said. And there’s a risk that care could be hindered if doctors rely solely on communicating over broadband, he said. “Here we are used to working with our referring physicians,” Cohen said. “We talk to them all the time. If it’s done all over broadband and impersonal, the potential to maintain quality is a real challenge."
Doctors already use broadband in their practices to save time and treat more patients. With few child psychiatrists practicing in rural areas, urban providers are using broadband to treat some patients, said Herb Schreier, a child psychiatrist. “About 75 percent of my practice I do online.” Rachel Kuperman, an infectious-disease physician who ends up treating many skin-related symptoms because there’s no dermatologist in-house, said she often sends photos over broadband to a friendly dermatologist for diagnostic help and a possible referral. “I've become the consumer, using telecommunications systems to get some help when I need it,” she said.
In a live demonstration, a doctor in Oakland controlled a video-enabled robot in Sebastopol, about 60 miles away. The technology has been useful for giving patients in remote areas access to specialists, but the economics of the technology remain unclear, said Arup Roy-Burman, a critical-care pediatrician. Payment from major insurance providers for such services needs to be standardized, and the federal government could help, he said. Grants to beef up physician staffing to allow the program to consult on more cases would also help, he said.