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Journal
of Telemedicine and Telecare |
pdf >>
Review
by Vincent
J Felitti, MD
ISSN
1357-633X. USD $173 for 6 issues, supplements, and full-text Internet
access to current and previous issues.
Publisher: Royal Society of Medicine, London
www.rsm.ac.uk/pub/jtt.htm
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The Journal
of Telemedicine and Telecare (JTT) is now in its seventh year of
bimonthly publication by the Royal Society of Medicine (London). The
journal is designed to bring together reports of successes and failures
in a new, exciting, and rapidly expanding field where an impressive
number of innovative ideas are being tested around the world.
Clearly,
electronic storage and transfer of information is currently important
in medical practice and is essential to its future. Use of computers,
personal digital assistants, and the Internet by physicians and patients
has become common. But expectations are rising faster than are experience
and practical use. For instance, resolution of operational problems
is now commonly postponed with the statement, "That will be solved
when we get the electronic medical record."
Browsing
through JTT, the reader finds a number of remarkably imaginative
projects that have already been instituted, often in remote parts of
the world. Telepathology, teleophthalmology, videoconferencing, telepsychiatry,
home monitoring, and teleradiology are all used, although not necessarily
successfully. The reader of JTT also finds that the technology
itself is usually only a minor part of the equation for successful medical
collaboration at a distance. Repeatedly, JTT reports project
failure traced to inadequately addressed issues of interpersonal cooperation,
hidden competitiveness, and a naïve hope that investment in technology
can somehow solve problems that have not been thoroughly analyzed. When
we also recognize that successful telemedicine approaches are volume-dependent
(because of costs that must be capitalized), we realize that any smoothly
running, high-volume operation depends first on a leader who organizes
human efforts for cumulative effect.
The Journal
of Telemedicine and Telecare would be a good investment for Kaiser
Permanente's in hospital medical libraries as a way to develop interest,
stimulate imaginative thinking, and yet maintain realistic expectations
among Permanente physicians contemplating the rapidly expanding field
of telemedicine. Some physicians may wish to subscribe, but others might
want to use the free alerting service with Table of Contents posted
on the Internet at www.rsm.ac.uk/pub/jtt.htm.
A free sample issue may also be viewed at that Internet address.
