Telemedicine tested by Alcorn State University: computer-monitoring device to assist in access to medical care - Tech Talk - rural health care - Brief Article

Black Issues in Higher Education, August 1, 2002 by Ronald Roach

NATCHEZ, MISS.

A collaboration between two Southern universities may advance the use of telemedicine in rural areas where medical care is least accessible.

A portable computer-monitoring device is being tested by historically Black Alcorn State University and the University of South Alabama, and it could change the future of telemedicine, officials contend.

The device, known as the VitalLink monitor unit, is the size of a suitcase and can facilitate blood oxygen analysis, blood pressure checks and the monitoring of heart activity, according to Dr. Frances Henderson, the dean of the school of nursing at Alcorn State University, which is in Natchez, Miss.

"There are so many people in the rural areas who are not getting the basic primary health care," Henderson says. "This technology addresses barriers people in those areas face, such as transportation, cultural differences, illiteracy and even the myths about hospitals."

Because the results of VitalLink's monitoring can be transmitted as computer data by telephone lines, Alcorn officials say the device could replace the mobile satellite setup that medical professionals currently use to access patient information from remote locations. Since late May, Alcorn health professionals have been testing the device at a satellite campus in Norman, Miss., which is north of Natchez. Currently, the testing, which is being funded by the Office for the Advancement of Telemedicine under the National Institutes of Health, is comparing how nurses in the field and nurses in a remote location with access to patient monitoring data make patient care decisions.

"It's exciting to be on the cutting edge of where medicine is going in the future," says Alcorn State nurse practitioner Maybelle Jackson, who oversees use of the device by the school's medical clinic in Natchez.

Residents of Jefferson County in Mississippi are paying visits to a clinic based in a mobile van on Alcorn's Norman campus. At the mobile clinic, the VitalLink device is facilitating patient testing, according to Alcorn officials. The Alcorn State role in the collaboration is funded at $100,000 for a year-long study.

In recent years, telemedicine has moved to the forefront of care in hospitals and medical centers throughout the United States. In complicated medical cases, doctors in different locations can view the same patient's scans or X-rays, discuss the information, and decide by consensus on treatment. Telemedicine brings immediate medical expertise to patients who might be unable to travel to specialists for consultation, officials say.

Rising medical costs and a shortage of nurses are straining health care systems nationwide. Mississippi is one state shown to be seriously understaffed by nurses. Recent moves among doctors to leave the state or retire from their practices because of an unfriendly legal climate is taking its toll on health care access, Mississippi officials have expressed.

Henderson explains that Alcorn State has long been interested in getting into telemedicine and was invited by the University of South Alabama, which is based in Mobile, Ala., to participate in the current study last.

"I think this is a program that can be a national model," says Carl Taylor, interim director of the Office of Emergency Health Care Technology at South Alabama.