Dr James Ferguson (lead clinician at the Scottish Centre for Telehealth) shares his view as to the slower adoption of telehealth south of the border in a Guardian article. What Scotland can teach England about telehealth. Although the focus of the article is on telemedicine we note the good advice: “We should actually be using this technology a whole lot more cleverly to support people before they get ill, and when they do get ill, select the patients that actually need the resource and reassure the ones that don’t that they’re okay. It’s not a difficult concept, but it’s a really difficult one to get people to change their behaviour.” Heads-up thanks TANN: Scotland.
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I am obliged to challenge Dr Ferguson’s allegation, I quote –
‘Ferguson, who is based at NHS Grampian in north east Scotland, acknowledges that no country has implemented a national telehealth solution, with most places introducing a “mish-mash” of pilots with “some successes”.’
What he should have said instead of “country” is “jurisdictions responsible for health care delivery”.
In Canada each of the provinces/territories is responsible for health care delivery and there are most certainly provincial policies in almost all of the provinces and territories that are directed at bringing telehealth into the mainstream of health care delivery. They do not represent a “mish-mash” of projects.
At eHealth-2011 at the end of May both Canada Health Infoway and COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics Association will be presenting evidence of the telehealth programs across Canada and the benefits derived from them.