"We are actively a profit centre for the government," said Dr. Ed Brown, founder and CEO of the OTN Friday at the first-ever Northern Telemedicine Forum, held at Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie, attended by health care providers from across northeastern Ontario and, via videoconference, from the northwest.
Since it was launched just five years ago, OTN has set up more than 1,200 sites across the province, including hospitals and primary care clinics, with two-way videoconferencing. A full quarter of these sites are in Northern Ontario, though we have only 6% of the population.
As a result, Brown said the North East LHIN estimates 61.3 million kilometres did not have to be travelled last year and $25.1 millions saved in expenses such as Northern Health Travel Grants.
"We live in a remote, rugged and altogether wonderful part of Ontario. But our landscape does present some obstacles: distances are great, health care resources are scarce and weather can be challenging," said NE LHIN CEO Louise Paquette.
Perhaps more importantly, access to care has been vastly improved, Paquette said. "Telemedicine is the enabler to provide Northerners with access to care over long distances," she said in a break between presentations in the all-day conference.
After an initial period of "reluctance among clinicians and sometimes patients," she said now "we know from research that patients are very pleased with the care that they are receiving ... It's a lot easier on the patient, and it's a lot easier on the pocket-book."
In the northeast, just over half of telemedicine activities are for mental health and addiction services.
For example, the only geriatrician in northeastern Ontario, Dr. Johanne Clarke, operates out of Sudbury but provides all the psychogeriatric assessments for the region, something that would have been impossible before.
Internal medicine comprises another 22% and oncology is third with 9%.
Brown said the OTN has plans to expand services dramatically by 2015, particularly in the area of "telehomecare." For example, a pilot program was conducted on about 800 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic heart failure two years ago. The patients were given electronic kits to help manage their disease from home and as a result hospital admissions were reduced by about 65%, he said.
He said the program was such a success that it's planned to be adopted by two of Ontario's 14 LHINs that have not yet been announced.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Frank Dobrovnik
Quelle/Source: The Sault Star, 07.05.2011
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