NowDox...Virtual Care

Nice article on mobile virtual collaboration

Andrew Barbash — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:47:53 +0000

We were happy to see this nicely written article just published

http://www.healthmgttech.com/index.php/solutions/hospitals/technology-brings-virtual-care-to-life.html

Case conferences with community participation

Andrew Barbash — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:37:34 +0000

Here are a few slides of the transition of a monthly case conference from only having people on site, to having a few remote clinicians able to participate actively. The ease of switching screens, showing various types of content, seeing the people talking, gets very close to EVERYONE feeling like they are “there”. In reality they now are!

Weekly case conferences without needing to travel

Andrew Barbash — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:16:42 +0000

It is now much easier to invite a guest expert specialist to participate in an interesting case conference because he/she would not need to travel and would not need any complex or special software/hardware in order to participate. The tools we use most often (either GoToMeeting or Vidyo, depending on type of meeting)..never fail to get people connected easily wherever they are. Sometimes a scheduled presenter has a change in their plans, but others have already planned to be present. No need to change the meeting!

In one scenario, a weekly cancer case conference has the presenter and most of audience in a large room, but remote participants as well. In the second scenario below it, the presenter who normally runs the meeting is presenting from home, and the experience of the audience, including asking questions or seeing drawings made on relevant scans in real time…is the same.

When video conference not feasible, secure document messaging helped!

Andrew Barbash — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:31:26 +0000

Yesterday a neurologist was consulting on a patient with a stroke in the Emergency Room, on site. The patients wife told him that their daughter, who worked in a government office and could not get to the hospital till that evening, would love to know more about what was going on. The neurologist asked for the email address of his daughter and sent an invite to get online to do a video conference and review the CT scans and discuss the situation in about an hour. Message sent from smartphone while in the ER and received by his daughter on her mobile tablet or laptop. She told him there was no webcam at work and when he sent her to his webpage with the one-click link into his virtual consult room….of course the employer’s network would not allow even a simple install of a tiny plugin applet that lets the video service run. While this is becoming less common, because the tools have figured these things out, it still happens and yet the clinical issue still needed to be solved.

So the neurologist contacted the NowDox support service, of which he is a subscriber. Another clinical support team member initiated a different virtual meeting utility and sent invite to the daughter and the neurologist. Even THAT utility, despite being from one of the most well established and security conscious technology vendors in healthcare, was “blocked” by not even allowing a simple java plugin. Rather than getting frustrated, they realized that all that was needed is for her to talk with the neurologist (over phone if that was the only option) and see the scans with his comments at the same time. So they together had the neurologist pull up the scans. used a screen capture tool, used a markup tool easily accessible to blot out any names or identifying info, saved as a PDF file and had him send it to the daughter.

Then 5 minutes later they were on the phone talking and both looking at the PDF file with a few comments, and she was thrilled to know what was going on, what to expect, etc.

Its about SERVICE, enabled by technology, whose purpose is to help people collaborate with other people. We at NowDox are so committed to making this happen, nothing will get in the way!

When a traditional video “system” was not so practical–a tech council meeting could still take place!

Andrew Barbash — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:56:19 +0000

We had an experience in which a new type of panel discussion needed to take place as part of a monthly meeting that is hosted by a prominent healthcare law firm. While an existing traditional video conferencing system was in place to connect their two offices when needed, in this case we needed to make sure a very busy family medicine clinician in another location could easily drop into such a session and be an active member of a panel discussion. He also needed to present an outline of how he had leverage various technologies to help transform his practice.

So we had the audio visual team just get a standard laptop on both ends, standard web cams, and let people connect by phone or computer microphone, did not matter. We were able to have a 3 way highly interactive panel discussion and bypass the traditional obstacles of technology complexity with a process that did not require any special configurations on either end.

The same processes and tools that enable Virtual Care really apply to the generic issues of collaboration between people. In this particular situation we used GoToMeeting because the meeting was more of a “managed by organizer” model in which controls/presenter status were handed back and forth. There was also high probability that some would be using VOIP and others telephone, but we needed all to have the same experience regardless.

The meeting went very well….but once again it is because the technology did not drive the event, it moved seamlessly to the background and we could focus on just talking, sharing and collaborating.

Why travel to give a presentation 2500 miles away?

Andrew Barbash — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 10:41:06 +0000

On Friday June 3, 2011 a group of clinicians who are active participants in virtual care had an amazing experience. Dr Barbash was asked to give a presentation on communications advances in support of Neuroscience centers of excellence by the team at ACIUS that hosts such conferences in many different cities, for many specialty areas of interest. Because the meeting was in San Diego and it was not an easy time to make a trip across the country for a few hours presentation, we decided to do all of this “virtually” but in a way that would be gratifying for the 60 or so people who were in the conference room in San Diego…i.e. to replicate the actual experience of being there. We had several clinicians in different specialties, different states and locations and time zones, all update their “Google Talk Status” to be “ready for the conference”. And about 5 minutes after introductions were done the audience saw, one by one, different clinicians “drop into the virtual conference room” and begin telling their stories and perspectives about virtual care and how it impacts not just neurosciences but many aspects of care across the continuum. It also created a virtual live “panel discussion” to answer questions from the audience. This was a pretty amazing experience for all involved and a great demonstration of the quality and power of the Vidyo virtual consult room model.

A medical director still able to join a nurse’s team meeting despite change in schedules

Andrew Barbash — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:22:45 +0000

Dr Barbash posted an item on his personal blog about leveraging virtual care tools to participate in team meetings remotely when schedules change at the last minute.

Managers able to join team meetings any time.

Using virtual meetings to show another application to someone

Andrew Barbash — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:54:00 +0000

We were contacted by an innovative technology company JEMS. (www.jemstech.com) that has some new tools to very easily broadcast a live surgical or any other procedure out to mobile devices of all types. Quick download and setup on mobile phone, tablet, etc. What was also cool is that I wanted to show it to another NowDox community member. I logged into the Vidyo room network, used the “call direct” function, he answered and i then held up my smartphone to the camera so he could see what was being demonstrated to me live thru streaming to my smartphone.

It showed the power of the new app I was exploring AND of the Vidyo virtual consult room network as well!

Daughter able to monitor father’s status in ICU without travelling to the hospital

Andrew Barbash — Sat, 14 May 2011 21:26:29 +0000

A posting about a family virtual visit into a neuro ICU under rather short notice….click link to view entire post.

Daughter able to monitor father’s status in ICU.

Cancer Care Navigators in different states planning a meeting together

Andrew Barbash — Sat, 14 May 2011 12:26:02 +0000

A wonderful example of care navigators, two in Canada, one in Maryland, online to discuss both an upcoming meeting agenda, and also some professional plans about how to enable better collaboration. The link is to a posting on Andrew Barbash, MD personal blog, one of the co-founders of NowDox. Albert Ferreira, the manager of the Holy Cross Virtual Care Initiative helped setup this online discussion for the team.

Click to see the full posting of Care Navigators Collaborating.