Mr Jacquinet made the announcement at a symposium that took place in Marseille marking the anniversary of the establishment of the ARS.
"We will pilot teleconsultation for inmates in one of the penal institutions in the region," said Mr Jaquinet at a telehealth roundtable. He noted that the ARS Picardy is currently deliberating over the issue, which falls under the framework of the national plan for access to healthcare in prisons, and in the context of the growing demand for healthcare and specialised expertise in prisons.
"Over the next six months, there will be meetings with healthcare professionals and representatives from concerned authorities," said Christian Huart, Deputy-Director of ARS information systems and Director of the Health Cooperation Group (Groupement de Coopération Sanitaire - GCS, in French) eHealth Picardy. This dialogue will identify the medical specialties that are a priority and will select the pilot location "according to motivation and support for the project, but also technical capabilities," he said.
Mr Jacquinet further pointed out the signing of a local cross-border health agreement with the ARS Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Belgium: "We are now performing a teleimaging experiment [with] a tele-expertise technical platform."
Mr Huart said that this cooperation is limited to an area of the Thiérache region, on the borders of Hirson (Aisne), Fourmies (northern France) and Chimay (Hainaut, Belgium), and aimed at tele-expertise, whose scope goes beyond that of teleimaging.
Furthermore, Mr Jacquinet referred to a teleconsultation pilot in psychiatry at the French department of Somme, whose initial results showed that practitioners and their patients are satisfied with this means of communication.
This project, which was started in 2008 at two mental health sectors in Amiens, the capital city of the Somme department, and its environs, involved the Philippe Pinel general hospital in particular. "I am not saying that opinions are unanimous, but there are positive returns on the remote practice of psychiatry," added Mr Huart.
In addition, the GCS eHealth Picardy hopes to implement a project that combines teleconsultation, tele-expertise and tele-assistance across the hospital community of the French department of West Oise (CH2O).
Funding could be provided by the 'Telemedicine 1' programme of the Agency for Shared Health Information Systems (Agence des Systèmes d'Information de santé Partagés - ASIP, in French), whose beneficiaries have not yet been announced.
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Quelle/Source: epractice, 05.05.2011
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