Christine S. Zambricki, CRNA, MS, FAAN
Chief Operating Officer & Chief Nursing Officer
Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital
Corporate Administration
One Ford Place, 4A
Detroit, MI 48202-3450
(313) 876-8719 Office
(313) 876-9893 Fax
(248) 885-15
This is a powerful innovation that has the potential to be transformational in challenging the complex, high cost, institutional approach that typifies health care delivery systems today. The health care industry desperately needs ideas that offer lower costs, higher quality and greater convenience and accessibility. While dominant players are focused on preserving business models of expensive care and technology arsenals, this innovation offers cheaper and simpler access to a qualified physician expert thus meeting the needs of the vast majority of patients who may otherwise suffer. Taking a world view, it is a relatively small population of people that has access to major medical centers and teaching hospitals. The benficiaries of this innovation could live in US cities or in vast desert communities or in outer space.
The long-term solution to affordable health care is making the system more efficient. I think we are headed for a new era of health care reform where health care delivery is digitized. Already many are touting electronic health records and doctors are reviewing their patients medical symptoms online. Once the electronic infrastructure has been built (most likely through private-public partnerships), we will see real health care reform take place.
Have you thought how this might work in a remote clinic site -- working on the Navajo reservation in rural western New Mexico we are far from ultrasound and even x-ray technicians -- can limited trained people use these portable units and send the info over plain old telephone lines??
This appears to be telemedicine done right! One question that arised was that because regulation still mandates that doctors have the final read of the ultrasounds, how much further could we push this capacity down the chain? Often radiologists are more capable of making the final read, are there any policy implications for the work you are doing or plans to push for this to be reformed to scale your innovation?
Scott A. Dulchavsky MD PhD
Chair of Surgery
Henry Ford Hospital
Thanks for your question. We are developing a network of physicans and radiologists with advanced reading capabilities thru networking which will provide a skilled interpreter for the examinations. Some exams, eg broken bones, etc are easily diagnosed on the video stream with high accuracy. others require greater resolution imaging with store and forward to the appropriate interpreter. We do feel that providing this worldwide network of experts, probably thru Skype, will allow a level of service and accuracy which exceeds most countries..
SD
Christine S. Zambricki, CRNA, MS, FAAN
Chief Operating Officer & Chief Nursing Officer
Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital
Corporate Administration
One Ford Place, 4A
Detroit, MI 48202-3450
(313) 876-8719 Office
(313) 876-9893 Fax
(248) 885-15
This is a powerful innovation that has the potential to be transformational in challenging the complex, high cost, institutional approach that typifies health care delivery systems today. The health care industry desperately needs ideas that offer lower costs, higher quality and greater convenience and accessibility. While dominant players are focused on preserving business models of expensive care and technology arsenals, this innovation offers cheaper and simpler access to a qualified physician expert thus meeting the needs of the vast majority of patients who may otherwise suffer. Taking a world view, it is a relatively small population of people that has access to major medical centers and teaching hospitals. The benficiaries of this innovation could live in US cities or in vast desert communities or in outer space.
The long-term solution to affordable health care is making the system more efficient. I think we are headed for a new era of health care reform where health care delivery is digitized. Already many are touting electronic health records and doctors are reviewing their patients medical symptoms online. Once the electronic infrastructure has been built (most likely through private-public partnerships), we will see real health care reform take place.
Have you thought how this might work in a remote clinic site -- working on the Navajo reservation in rural western New Mexico we are far from ultrasound and even x-ray technicians -- can limited trained people use these portable units and send the info over plain old telephone lines??
Dear Dr. Dulchavsky:
This appears to be telemedicine done right! One question that arised was that because regulation still mandates that doctors have the final read of the ultrasounds, how much further could we push this capacity down the chain? Often radiologists are more capable of making the final read, are there any policy implications for the work you are doing or plans to push for this to be reformed to scale your innovation?
Thank you in advance for your response!
Changemakers Team
Scott A. Dulchavsky MD PhD
Chair of Surgery
Henry Ford Hospital
Thanks for your question. We are developing a network of physicans and radiologists with advanced reading capabilities thru networking which will provide a skilled interpreter for the examinations. Some exams, eg broken bones, etc are easily diagnosed on the video stream with high accuracy. others require greater resolution imaging with store and forward to the appropriate interpreter. We do feel that providing this worldwide network of experts, probably thru Skype, will allow a level of service and accuracy which exceeds most countries..
SD