Philly's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital turns to telemedicine to boost quality

The hospital has built a program to allow physicians to perform consultations using video apps so that patients with less-critical needs are treated in other settings besides the emergency room.
A telemedicine call center helped reduce the rate of readmissions among patients after hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction, according to a study in which a nurse could dispatch a mobile intensive care unit or make other recommendations while consulting with the physician on call.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network is involved in a pilot project that allows patients to speak directly to ER physicians via an iPad connection.
The University of California-San Diego Health System also has a telemedicine pilot program in which on-call physicians who are outside of the hospital remotely link to a telemedicine station to see patients.  Read More