Search AMIA.org

A national survey conducted for the Office of Rural Health Policy in 1995 identified 558 participants in rural telemedicine; 499 (89%) responded to a detailed follow-up survey to describe type of use. While 84% of respondents reported using interactive video, only 25% reported access to e-mail for exchange of data. The challenge to medical informatics is to connect dispersed providers, not just with videoconferencing, but also with other information-sharing methods.

The Interactive Home Health Care Program is a demonstration project evaluating the use of in-home telemedicine to provide health care for elderly and disabled people. Local cable systems interconnect a base station staffed by a telemedicine nurse with a modified television in the home. Six months into the project, 38 patients are being cared for at three sites in rural Kansas. Individual patient profiles show improvement. Technical and social challenges [...]

To determine the extent to which a combination of existing machine-readable health terminologies cover the concepts and terms needed for a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for health information systems by carrying out a distributed national experiment using the Internet and the UMLS Knowledge Sources, lexical programs, and server.

In mid-1996, the FDA called for discussions on regulation of clinical software programs as medical devices. In response, a consortium of organizations dedicated to improving health care through information technology has developed recommendations for the responsible regulation and monitoring of clinical software systems by users, vendors, and regulatory agencies. Organizations assisting in development of recommendations, or endorsing the consortium position include the American Medical Informatics Association, the Computer-based Patient Record [...]

Health care is shifting from a focus on hospital-based acute care toward prevention, promotion of wellness, and maintenance of function in community and home-based facilities. Telemedicine can facilitate this shifted focus, but the bulk of the current projects emphasize academic medical center consultations to rural hospitals. Home-based projects encounter barriers of cost and inadequate infrastructure. The 1996 Telecommunications Act as implemented by the Federal Communications commission holds out significant promise [...]

Errors of omission are a common cause of systems failures. Physicians often fail to order tests or treatments needed to monitor/ameliorate the effects of other tests or treatments. The authors hypothesized that automated, guideline-based reminders to physicians, provided as they wrote orders, could reduce these omissions.

To explore the informatic requirements in the home care of chronically ill patients.

Computer-based reminder systems have the potential to change physician and patient behaviors and to improve patient outcomes. We performed a meta-analysis of published randomized controlled trials to assess the overall effectiveness of computer-based reminder systems in ambulatory settings directed at preventive care.