From the      Telepresence and Videoconferencing Insight Newsletter

An update on Cisco's HealthPresence initiative in Argentina with Telepresence Options Publisher Howard Lichtman's thoughts on telepresence in healthcare and the potential for choice it could bring.

5 October 2009. The second phase of a Telemedicine pilot project, led by the Prof. Dr. Juan P. Garrahan Pediatric Hospital, Cisco and Telefónica, in cooperation with Castro Rendón Hospital has started. This multiphase project is geared to offering remote health care support and services in different provinces of the Argentine Republic.

This initiative is part of the Garrahan Hospital's Telemedecine Reference and Counter-reference Program, which has been taking place for more than 12 years in partnership with the Garrahan Foundation. The program is managed by the Communications at a Distance Office, which delivers remote support for diagnosis via e-mail, fax and telephone to more than 70 hospitals in Argentina.



The telemedecine pilot, enabled by Cisco® collaborative technologies such as Cisco TelePresence (tm) and Cisco Unified Communications, will enhance doctor-patient interactions over a distance; support diagnoses in complex cases in remote and budget-constrained hospitals; optimize the hospital's resources; and underpin a more collaborative process in terms of procedures, prevention programs and medical treatment, all within a highly secure and effective environment.

The Telemedicine pilot project, based on the concept of Connected Health by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), promises to be an innovative way of optimizing and elevating the Telemedicine experience for health professionals and patients in Argentina and the rest of Latin America.

 The Telemedecine pilot project with Cisco includes three phases: The first phase within the Garrahan Hospital was designed to test the Cisco TelePresence technology and provide training to doctors. The second phase involves connecting the Garrahan Hospital and Castro Rendón Hospital, located about 1,400 kilometers away in the Neuquen province in the Argentinean Patagonia, through Telefonica's network. The last phase will provide coverage to the main medical centers that participate in the Communications at a Distance program of Garrahan Hospital, including the most southern area of the country.

Telefónica is providing connectivity through its national network for the Garrahan Hospital and Castro Rendón Hospital in Nequén.

The program is focused on two main goals: One is that patients from any part of the country will be able to obtain excellent medical care with the possibility of having consultations and appropriate referrals. And the second is guaranteeing access to medical care from the place of residency, in order to be able to continue with control and necessary follow-ups to receive the specialized care for pathologies that require immediate or short-term treatment.

"Prof. Dr. Juan P. Garrahan" S.A.M.I.C. Pediatric Hospital is a high- complexity public hospital which provides medical care to newborns, children and adolescents between the ages of 0 and 15 years. Due to its characteristics, the level of training of its personnel and its equipment, it is considered to be a national reference center for the diagnosis and treatment of the most complex childhood pathologies. Medical care is free for patients and the Hospital receives its budget from public funding provided by the National Government and the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, and from invoicing for services for charitable work and private medical care.

HSL's Thoughts and Analysis

"Everything great and intelligent is in the minority" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This is one of the most exciting potential areas for telepresence.  Most folks are stuck with whatever allopathic AMA monopoly medical practitioner is closest to them that their insurance accepts and many AMA doctors are simply salesmen for the pharmaceutical industry pushing dangerous vaccines and addictive drugs on an unsuspecting public.   I am a fan of natural healing, naturopathic medicine, and the orthomolecular school of medicine which posit that the key to heath is returning the body to biochemical stasis (removing refined sugar, white flour, unnecessary pharmaceuticals, dangerous vaccines, caffeine, and anything else that would interfere with the body's natural immune system and inhibit optimum health).  The problem is that holistic, orthomolecular natural healers are few and far between.  If telepresence in healthcare opens up choice among physicians in a wide number of disciplines then I see the potential for much good.  If telepresence in healthcare limits the options to a handful of AMA allopathic monopoly medical practitioners then that would be bad. I would hope Cisco would push to see that widest array of medical alternatives is supported so that the reputation of telepresence in health care isn't tarnished right off the bat.