Telemedicine applications play an increasingly important role in health care. They offer indispensable tools for home healthcare, remote patient monitoring, and disease management, not only for rural health and battlefield care, but also for nursing home, assisted living facilities, and maritime and aviation settings.
One of the greatest challenges in rural health is assuring that medical expertise is available where it is needed, when it is needed. This is difficult for remote rural healthcare facilities because they are often unable to attract, afford or retain specialty providers. With telemedicine, KIMS has helped solve these issues by allowing access to specialists regardless of location. This is done with live video or store and forward solutions or combinations of both. With telemedicine, a remote physician "sees" the patient remotely using communications technology and special medical devices. The telemedicine specialist can examine the patient, review vital signs and patient history, provide assessment, diagnosis and treatment. Usually treatment can be delivered locally. This minimizes or eliminates the need for travel for either the patient or the specialist.
In a country like India, our telemedicine physicians allow rapid deployment of healthcare to a developing population though relatively low cost clinics. Rather than build and staff large numbers of sophisticated facilities, telemedicine allows basic clinics to share the expertise of clinicians and clinical specialist who may be located centrally or decentralized. Expertise is delivered where it is needed and when it is needed. This substantially changes the healthcare delivery strategy of a developing country. It accelerates deployment and costs a fraction of a traditional "bricks and mortar" strategy.
We deliver high quality care to prison facilities without the cost and dangers of inmate transportation or the need for clinical specialist to enter the facility. Telemedicine substantially improves access to care while substantially reducing costs. Telemedicine has proven effective for clinical as well as mental health.
Telemedicine provides emergency services support to the school nurse and allows her or his access to expert medical opinion on when it is needed. The school nurse is an isolated provider yet she has to respond to a variety of needs. In some rural communities, the school nurse may be the only healthcare provider. If she cannot confidently diagnose and treat an issue, the student must be referred many miles away. Telemedicine addresses these issues specifically.
We provide telemedicine specialists and equipment to mobile health units, giving communities access to specialist expertise regardless of where either the mobile health unit or the specialist is located. Mobile health units can serve the community, send challenging cases or second opinion requests to a remote specialist for x-ray reads, diagnosis support, treatment advice, etc. to assure the local patient receives appropriate care.
The telemedicine department at KIMS offers effective disaster relief allowing healthcare delivery capability to move in quickly after a disaster. This allows the on-sight providers rapid access to advanced expertise and capabilities for triage and care electronically when and where it is most needed.
Whether it includes crews of cargo ships at sea, guest and crews of cruise ships, passengers and crews in the air or owners, guests and crews on private yachts. Our telemedicine team allows access to advance healthcare expertise, triage advise as well as diagnosis and treatment regardless of where the ship or plane avoiding unscheduled diversions.
Industrial sites such as mines, drilling platforms or industrial campuses depend on the health of their employees to operate. They must respond to an unpredictable set of health needs to support sometimes hundreds of employees. Our telemedicine service helps avoid the high cost evacuations and assures that the worker receives appropriate treatment and is available to support operations as soon as possible.
The Department of Telemedicine at KIMS enables health care professionals to evaluate, diagnose and treat patients in remote locations using telecommunications technology. Our telemedicine team provides more efficient use of limited expert resources who can "see" patients in multiple locations wherever they are needed without leaving the hospital. Telemedicine offers a reduced cost solution to delivering remote care when and where it is needed without the building and staffing added facilities especially in rural areas in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Local practitioners often consult with KIMS specialists and clinical experts when needed.