The first edition of the new e-Journal of the ISfTeH, "Journal of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth", edited by Prof. Maurice Mars (South Africa), Prof. Richard Scott (Canada) and Dr. Malina Jordanova (Bulgaria), has been published.

The Journal is published under ISSN 2308-0310, and will soon be indexed. It is available at www.jisfteh.org. The Journal is open access, but you have to login with a username and password in order to view the full text papers. You can create your login here.

The content of the first issue, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2013), is:

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Editorial

Welcome - to yet another eHealth journal!
Original Research

Implementing Interactive Voice Recognition Technology to Activate Vulnerable Patients
Effectiveness of a telehealth and telecare learning resource within an undergraduate nursing curriculum
Applying an integrated approach to the design, implementation and evaluation of a telemedicine system
Business model analysis of eHealth use cases in Europe and in Japan
A conceptual framework for secure mobile health
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If you are interested to submit a paper to this Journal, please register with the Journal as an author and read the submission guidelines.

Any other questions are welcome at info@isfteh.org.

Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS), one of the largest home nursing and home care providers in Australia, has been trialing the "Happy, Healthy and at Home Medication Management via Video" project for the past year. It was one of 12 projects to share in the Victorian Government's $4 million Broadband-Enabled Innovation Program (BEIP), helping to promote the use of broadband in a bid to revolutionise access to healthcare for regional and rural patients.

Medication management is a core activity for RDNS with 25% of all client visits including such assistance as part of the RDNS service package. Like most of the developed world, Australia is confronting the dual challenge of an ageing population and an ageing workforce.

The growth in demand for home based healthcare services is outstripping the growth in supply of healthcare providers. To compound this problem for organizations like RDNS whose traditional service model has been built on face to face visits to clients by nurses, urban congestion is constantly increasing the amount of time spent traveling to clients. In addition, publicly funded health and home care expenditure is under increasing pressure and the need to contain operating costs is acute. To address these challenges and prepare RDNS for the future, RDNS has been trialing a new service model whereby medication management visits are delivered to clients by registered nurses via a videoconferencing unit installed in the client's home.

Given the current rollout throughout Australia of the National Broadband Network, this trial is a timely exploration of what the future may hold in terms of the potential for 'remote nursing' in an urban environment. The RDNS clients in the trial are typically receiving a combination of face to face and video visits. The main challenges for RDNS in this trial are testing the clinical efficacy of this service model and identifying whether a business model exists which will sustain this mode of service and allow it be 'mainstreamed'.

The pilot project will end in June, when RDNS and La Trobe University's Australian Institute for Primary Care and Ageing will evaluate its success and consider the potential for the project to be expanded for a range of uses.

In a recent interview with Nursing Careers Allied Health (see here), RDNS projects and business development executive general manager Stelvio Vido said there was enormous potential for the high-speed broadband technology project to be expanded. "We are pretty excited about it," he said. "We are currently using it for medication management but we can see many other potential uses for it. We could use it for remote monitoring of clients with chronic conditions, where regular monitoring of key vital signs can be used, for health coaching, for general support to clients in cases of the palliative care sense - it has a range of applications."

Mr. Vido, said clients involved in the pilot had also embraced the use of telehealth: "Some of them enjoy the technology aspect and being a part of something modern and forward looking. The oldest client to use the technology was 94. It's amazing just the age of the clients using the service and it really does debunk the urban myth that older people can't embrace technology.
"This is just one example of us looking at what opportunities technology offers in a way that doesn't compromise the client-nurse relationship," he said. "Telehealth is not replacing the human element!"

Click here to access Stelvio Vido's presentation about the Happy, Healthy and at Home project, made at Med-e-Tel 2013.

AMD Global Telemedicine announced a significant increase in the adoption of their clinical telemedicine solutions internationally, which confirms industry analyst predictions for telemedicine market growth.

AMD reports a four hundred percent (400%) increase in the rate of adoption for international markets over the last eighteen (18) months. The new countries using AMD's telemedicine products and services include: Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Estonia, Ethiopia, French Polynesia (Tahiti), Jordan, Kenya, Maldives, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, and Vietnam.

"For years market analysts have been making such positive predictions for the telemedicine market as a whole, but it has always been difficult to gauge the growth potential of individual sectors, like AMD's clinical telemedicine market," commented Dan McCafferty, Vice President, Global Sales & Corporate Development, AMD Global Telemedicine. "But now, we have experienced the growth first-hand and this is truly a testament to how well telemedicine brings specialty care to rural areas across the globe," added Mr. McCafferty.

In other recent news, AMD also announced "AGNES Interactive", a browser-based telemedicine portal that enables remote clinical healthcare providers to receive live patient diagnostic data simultaneously with real-time video conferencing.

AGNES Interactive is the first browser-based workspace application that combines all the tools and technologies required to effectively execute a clinical telemedicine encounter in a single, thin client interface. The following patient assessment tools and technologies are delivered within a single portal:

• Open standards-based video conferencing
• Real-time medical device data from video scopes, cameras, stethoscopes, vital signs monitors, ECGs, spirometers and ultrasound systems
• Third party applications such as EMR, Pharmacy and PACS systems
• Secure exchange of medical documents and fixed images within the patient context
• HL7 integration engine that accommodates any patient record platform 

"With AGNES Interactive single browser workspace, a consulting physician can see and interact with the patient, see and hear what the medical devices reveal, securely exchange documents and images, access and update the patient record and even write a prescription," said Dan McCafferty. "We believe the addition of the SIP based video conferencing capability will have a tremendous impact on the adoption of clinical telemedicine and we look forward to using this technology to allow any or all SIP based products to work under the AGNES umbrella," McCafferty added.

AMD was also a participant at Med-e-Tel 2013. View their presentation on "The Power and Economic Impact of Network Based Medical Device Aggregators" here.

GlobalMed, along with the International Trust Fund Enhancing Human Security (ITF), a non-profit organization founded by the Republic of Slovenia, and the International Virtual e-Hospital Foundation (IVeH), a nonprofit organization developed by Dr. Rifat Latifi, Board Member of the ISfTeH (International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth), in the Republic of Kosova, will soon enter phase II of the implementation of telemedicine throughout Cape Verde, an island chain off the coast of Western Africa.

The partnership with GlobalMed is aimed at building upon a long-range plan of connecting hospitals on all nine inhabited islands using GlobalMed's telemedicine solutions. IVeH was instrumental in the implementation of an integrated telemedicine and eHealth program for Cape Verde in connection with the Republic of Cape Verde and the Republic of Slovenia, which has also provided financial resources for the program's implementation.

The opening ceremony for the launch of phase I was held in January 2013 in Sao Vicente, Cape Verde and marked the complete installation of the telemedicine system and the establishment of a telemedicine network within six of the 10 planned regional hospitals.

The goal for phase II of the implementation is to extend the network to the remaining four regional hospitals in order to provide residents within the area access to specialty care and services. This effort includes installing additional GlobalMed telemedicine systems and further educating local physicians in telemedicine with the help of IVeH, which provides telemedicine, telehealth and virtual medical education programs in developing countries.

"We are proud to provide the solutions needed to help IVeH and the ITF meet their long-range goals of building a sustainable and fully integrated telemedicine network," stated GlobalMed Founder and Managing Director Joel E. Barthelemy. "This next phase of implementation will bring the population of Cape Verde one step closer to the critical healthcare services they need."

Primarily, basic healthcare services are available at Cape Verde. Specialized treatment, which is centered on the two main hospitals on the islands Santiago and Sao Vicente, is expensive due to the high costs of transportation and deals with unnecessary transfers from outlying islands to those two main islands.

In assessing Cape Verde's healthcare needs, the ITF determined that the country with more than 500,000 residents would be the ideal place to implement the telemedicine program because of the shortage of specialized care and lack of advanced medical equipment.