Telemedicine - East of England Stroke Pilot using Iocom
13 October 2009
St Vincent’s Healthcare Consulting are assisting The East of England SHA in running a telemedicine pilot on behalf of the Anglian Stroke Network for dealing with stroke patients. The system consists of 4 telemedicine carts with Iocom’s Video Collaboration Software. The on call stroke consultant can connect from home 24/7 to the cart in any of the 5 hospitals accident and emergency departments. Once connected the consultant can review pacs images transmitted by the cart, view and speak to the patient, from this the consultant can either recommend or rule out the use of thrombolysis.
Thrombolysis is used for ischemic stroke and acts as a clot busting drug; this reduces the effect of the stroke in the patient.
As the pilot is moving along more and more Iocom video consultations are taking place at Watford, Addenbrookes, Peterborough and Southend Hospitals to remote consultants.
A patient was admitted to Watford Hospital who had suffered a stroke, they fell into the criteria that may have to be thrombolysed, the on call consultant in Cambridge (60 miles away) was contacted and the within minutes the consultant was able to view the patient and had access to the PACS images. The decision was made to thrombolyse and the patient made a full recovery and was able to leave hospital the next day. Feedback from the patient was very good; they could see and hear the consultant clearly and didn’t have any problems being diagnosed via the Iocom video link from a remote location.
The savings from thrombolysing one stroke patient has already covered the cost of the pilot.
