Make It Classic

Global Positioning System or GPS has found its way to human everyday lives in a number of ways not previously possible. It has managed to save lives and property all over the world. It played a big part in rescue operations of trapped miners as GPS receivers were quick to determine the nearest police car, fire truck or ambulance to an emergency. Mapping, construction and surveying companies rely on GPS receivers to check their positions to make sure that a straight tunnel, for example, is made rather than a crooked one. Mine operations use GPS for safe navigation of mining equipments when visibility is obscure.

Automobile manufacturers offer moving-map display guided by GPS receivers as a feature in new vehicles. Archeological, biologists and explorers use GPS systems to locate ancient ruins, migrating animals and herds and endangered species. The future of GPS is only limited by one’s imagination.

What started as two physicians consulting about a patient by e-mail has now reached the point where telesurgery is possible. The use of communication technology to provide medical care and education at a distance or telemedicine has exploded in the last ten years especially in medically underserved rural areas. At present, there are more than 200 telemedicine programs in the U.S., including centers in academic medical institutions.

Telemedicine’s economic role as consumers and insurers demand more cost-efficient medical care is expected to be big. There are plans to use telecommunication equipment to home-monitor the conditions of thousands of chronically-ill patients due to a study that showed that such a program could decrease hospital length of stay, emergency room trips and home-care nurse visits. The full potential of telemedicine is yet to unfold.

The concepts of telemedicine or providing medical care at a distance are not easily acceptable to both the medical practitioners and patients who feel that there is nothing better than actual physical consultation. There are also those who do not have access to such technology or those who are simply technologically-challenged.

One of the main challenges in telemedicine is connecting physicians to technology and program opportunities. There may be a need to push the limits of conventional thinking on clinical care. There is also a need to have a resource that will assist physicians with their telemedicine programs and ideas. Sharing of experiences, resources and information seems to be financially and programmatically sound at this time so that everyone would not need to start constantly from zero. Domestic regulatory and health insurance reimbursement requirements are some of the other obstacles in the area of telemedicine.

Remote controls should simplify our lives with their presence as they enable the operation of devices even at a distance. Each remote-controlled appliance would, of course, have its own remote control. The reality of everyday living, even at the simplest households is the number of appliances, whose control has to be mastered individually.

Too many can be quite confusing especially since it is seldom that appliances are meant to work cohesively together under one control. At best, the attempt to provide a single control comes with a readily-packaged set of appliances. Even such attempts fail miserably as remote controls become more complicated to operate because of the sheer volume of function it has to perform. In the end, consumers find it easier to go back to one remote control per unit and get tangled just the same with the demands of the new technology.

A product that integrates videoconferencing and asynchronous or the so-called “store-and-forward” technology is working to reduce or eliminate travel while increasing access to medical care especially in places where specialty care is hard to come by and where demand is high. A case in point: seven ophthalmologists responsible for 3 million people in South Central LA. Quick dispatch of medical care can be impossible with the sheer disparity in number.

The store-and-forward technology makes it possible for the doctors to see more patients by not actually seeing them. This would mean replacing clinic visits by images taken by technicians which are then delivered to the doctors’ e-mail in-boxes. Employers and employees seem to find the workplace services acceptable since patients are served a lot faster without the need to leave the workplace.