Tel-e-Atrics Summary

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 Connect^TM 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 Connect^TM 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.