Telemedicine can let patients benefit from the experience of specialists that would otherwise be unavailable to treat them. But studies of telemedicine in intensive care units are producing mixed results.
By John Timmer
Electronic medical records aren’t the only high-tech solution that many hope will revolutionize medicine. Telemedicine has been promoted as a way of letting patients receive care from specialists they might otherwise not have access to, and some studies have produced data suggesting it can live up to its promise, at least in some contexts. The latest specialty to go under the microscope is intensive care medicine (practitioners are apparently called “intensivists”). A study released by the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that telemedicine may bring some small benefits to the ICU, but the impact is very subtle. Read More…
