A customer last week requested a summary of Tel-e-Atrics which would include: what we do, how we do it, who uses the solution, and what are the liabilities.
I put this piece together based on a combination of a number of other things that we have done in the past.
It is a good overview.
Tel-e-Atrics, Inc. (TEA) was created to
enable telemedicine interactions between clinicians (physicians, nurse
practitioners, etc) and patients. Telemedicine services encompass diagnosis,
treatment, and information exchange with the clinician and patient in different
locations, facilitated by telecommunications and information technology. TEA supplies clinicians and patient groups
(childcare centers, schools, nursing homes, etc) with Tel-e-Atrics-Connect TM, an integrated telemedicine
package of processes, training, software, and computer services to enable the
participants to engage in personable and effective healthcare encounters over
the internet. These virtual calls provide timely medical support without the
patient or provider leaving their usual locations.
TEA’s products
and services, used as the primary infrastructure for the University of
Rochester Medical Center’s Health-e-Access Program has helped demonstrate that
a telemedicine model of care can offer the following advantages for the patient
and the care givers:
· 63 % reduction in absence from childcare
centers/schools due to illness,
· Reduce parent absence
from work due to the need to bring ill
children to a doctor or Nurse Practitioner and/or care for them at home by 4.5
hours,
· Reduce use of costly after hours clinics and
hospital emergency departments,
· Increase access to health care for underserved
and well served populations,
· Better quality health services through earlier
diagnosis/treatment of illness,
· Successful diagnosis/treatment for 96% of childcare
health problems,
· Capacity to replace over 50% of illness office
visits with telemedicine visits,
· Higher clinician productivity and revenue
generation, and reduction of overhead,
· Higher quality healthcare and more effective
medical education through ready capture and review of digital images, audio
files, video clips and electronic textual documentation.
Tel-e-Atrics provides a fully functional platform
developed from a successful product and service model that the Company supports
with a variety of customers in the Rochester, New York area. Forty-one sites including schools, childcare
centers, and group homes are operational. These sites electronically interconnect patients with doctors at ten
private pediatric practices, the University of Rochester Children’s
Hospital and 4 after-hour on call nursing stations. Current system users include six different
customers, over 200 health care providers and over 1,800 registered patients. Several
thousand virtual office visits have been completed through the daily use of Tel-e-Atrics Connect. For a partial list of current users please
visit http://www.teleatrics.com/clients.html.
Tel-e-Atrics ConnectTM Process
When a child at an originating
site needs health services, they go where the telemedicine unit is located at
the originating site. The health staff at the originating site then evaluates
the situation and determines if a telemedicine visit is warranted. If so, the telehealth assistant collects
relevant information regarding the health problem and enters it into the Tel-e-Atrics ConnectTM software. This information can include check-box and
text description of symptoms, fixed images, video clips, audio files, and other
important relevant information. Real-time evaluations are then scheduled with the Nurse Practitioner by
the telehealth assistant (specially trained health staff at the originating
site), usually within 30 minutes from the request via the originating
site.
Real-time evaluations generally
begin with the review of the forwarded information by the clinician (images,
audio clips, text) collected by the telehealth assistant before the
consultation. Sometimes a diagnosis is
straight forward and no additional information is required by the
clinician. Other times it is not and the
Nurse Practitioner works directly, via live video camera conferencing, with the
telehealth assistant to collect additional information before making a
diagnoses.
After making a diagnosis, the Nurse
Practitioner / licensed health care professional can discuss the problem and
treatment recommendations with the telehealth assistant via videoconference or
phone. The parent may or may not be
present for these discussions. If the
parent is not present, the Nurse Practitioner may speak directly with the
parent by phone, based on the request of the telehealth assistant or parent or
the judgment of the Nurse Practitioner.
After the visit is complete,
information on the diagnosis and treatment recommendations generated by the Nurse
Practitioner for parents, is printed out at the originating site for the
parent. If medication is prescribed, the
clinician can order it and a pharmacy deliver it to the originating site or
have it ready for a parent to pick up. The telehealth assistant discusses the diagnoses with the parent and a
summary of the telemedicine visit is faxed to the patient’s primary care physician
(PCP) / Nurse Practitioner if the clinician conducting the visit was not their
PCP.
The Tel-e-Atrics system is a
tool used by the health care providers. The providers assume all liability for the diagnosis that is arrived at
by using the telemedicine solution as if it were an in person visit. Providers are advised that if they are not
comfortable with making a diagnosis based on the information that is provided
through the telemedicine system to have the child come in for an in person
evaluation. Experience has shown that 96% of telemedicine visits result in
successful diagnoses via the telemedicine visit. The other 4 % required additional information
where the patient needed to go in for an in person visit.
Additional information regarding
the Tel-e-Atrics system and solution
can be reviewed on the Tel-e-Atrics website at www.teleatrics.com including the CBS and
ABC Evening News pieces that were done on Tel-e-Atrics
largest customer the Health-e-Access program.
