IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to Hrant Khachatryan, radio engineer of Simotech company, if the project is approved, a telemedicine pilot will be launched in Armenia next year. The network will be comprised of 3 fixed (in Yerevan and regions) and 3 mobile nodes, equipped with technology and having satellite communication. The working group of Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission on economic cooperation was involved in negotiations.

This initiative, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, dates back to 2004 when the Fund pioneered a pilot project in telemedicine. Since 2004, Karabakh Telecom has generously provided free, high-speed internet access to the newly built polyclinic in Stepanakert, connecting the biggest healthcare hub in Karabakh to the international medical community.

Telemedicine as a field is relatively new to the healthcare community. The tool has been widely utilized to overcome challenges of time and distance when it comes to prompt and precise medical diagnosis and information exchange.

Armenian Health Minister Derenik Dumanyan said at the proposal made by India implies cooperation with an IT company.

Earlier, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Manasaryan said India had already chosen a company, and on Armenian side, the health ministry will be involved in the deal and one of Armenian IT companies.

The project aims to create a telemedicine connection between a primary health care facility in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), and AATM central office, Yerevan, Armenia.

Endorsed by the Government of NKR and conducted in association with the Union of Information Technology Enterprises of Armenia (UITE) and telemedicine R&D company Symotec LLC, the project is the second of this kind in Armenia.

Guan Cuntai, program manager, intelligent systems for personalized and connected healthcare at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), noted that telemedicine deployment in the region is still in its early stage and yet to enter the mainstream.

Telemedicine, broadly defined, is the provision of healthcare or medical information and services via communication networks such as telephone and broadband lines. Over the last few years, as broadband initiatives around the world became more pervasive, telemedicine has been "revived and revolutionized", said Sash Murkerjee, senior market analyst, IDC Health Insights Asia-Pacific.

This growth curve has accelerated dramatically in the past few years with the introduction of new technologies, new applications and particularly with the birth of the wireless world and a newfound familiarity and acceptance of technology by the general populace. As the United Nations reported earlier this year, more than 6 billion people worldwide now have access to cell phones (compared to only 4.5 billion with access to toilets!)

The two-hour session, one of several held in advance of Sunday evening's official opening of the ATA 2011 conference, highlighted telemedicine projects in four nations – Australia, Brazil, India and China – and introduced five more to the ATA's international fold. It also gave ATA officials a chance to point out the value of those projects to America's changing healthcare landscape.

"This is a time … where we do have to work together more than any other time," said ATA President Dale Alverson in opening the session. "We are in a major transition in the United States with healthcare reform."

The system barely functions a year after it was launched and this week former AMA president Dr Mukesh Haikerwal and Dr Nathan Pinksier and two other advisers quit in frustration.

Although 690,000 Australians have signed up for an e-health record the Department of Health has admitted only 5427 patient records have been provided by doctors.

He said, "These exciting initiatives will help demonstrate how important high-speed broadband is to the future of healthcare and highlight why it should be rolled out to all Australians".

Video medical consulting from the familiarity of a GP’s rooms was to remove barriers for people having difficulty getting to major cities.

But the federal government announced it will cut Telehealth services to outer metropolitan areas from January next year - meaning Illawarra residents won’t have access.

The $620 million scheme that links doctors and patients via video-link was the centrepiece of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2010 election campaign launch.

It was promised the scheme would give patients outside major cities access to a specialist, with a target of 495,000 consultations by July 2015.

Telstra Health recently announced the purchase of the business assets of Medibank’s Anywhere Healthcare, one of Australia’s specialist telemedicine solutions.

Established by Medibank in 2013, Anywhere Health offers people in regional and remote areas of Australia or people with physical constraint access to specialist medical practitioners and other allied health professionals over video conference.

The increasing number of aged people will place unsustainable stress on established healthcare services and will result in increasing deficits in clinical human resources, the expansion of disease management programs and patient demand for greater self-management.

Health minister, Tanya Plibersek, and communications minister, senator Stephen Conroy, said the $20.6m program would deliver services to patients in NBN rollout areas and provide feedback on how it and other health care measures could be delivered nationwide.

Aged and palliative care are two of the key focus areas for a $20.6 million pilot program announced by the federal government in April. The national broadband network enabled Telehealth Pilots Program will provide funding for innovative schemes over the next two years.

The government hopes that the ability to harness technology to support high quality palliative care in home or aged care settings could deliver massive economic benefits, while responding to patient preferences regarding their ability to die in their own homes.

In 2010, $466.7 million of funding was allocated for a period of two years to launch a personally-controlled e-health record (PCEHR) system for all Australians from 1 July.

Funding for the program was scheduled to run out this year, however the program has been given a $233.7 million boost in the 2012-2013 Federal Budget.

All Australians should be automatically signed up to the national health records system, according to a patients lobby group.

Consumer Health Forum, which represents more than 2 million consumers, says Australia should “bite the bullet” and make joining the system automatic unless patients choose to opt out.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has been given until October 2011 to create standards for video consultations with GPs.

The college revealed late Friday that it had been engaged by the Department of Health and Ageing to develop the telehealth standards.

College president Claire Jackson said the creation of nationwide telehealth standards were important, "given Medicare rebates and financial incentives for video consultations [with] patients in outer metropolitan, regional and remote Australia, across a range of specialties, will be available from 1 July 2011."

The Coalition says it will trial an opt-in pigeonhole from 2014, which will be a free, secure digital inbox that can be used as a standalone “mailbox” or be combined with another email address for communication from all levels of government.