The overwhelming and increasing burden of chronic disease is ripe for a technological fix. One such solution will be Home Telemonitoring, for the management of such chronic conditions as diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure and asthma, to name a few. We are working to introduce a variety of home telemonitoring devices into clinical practice. These include the Health Buddy and Health Sentry devices, connected via PC, Web-TV, Kiosk and telephone to Internet based management programs and databases.
The goal of the telemedicine initiative is threefold: 1) Introduce students to the type of technological tools they are likely to have available as future disease managers 2) evaluate "electronic solutions" in a variety of clinical settings and study their cost-effectiveness 3) develop new tools to improve the management of chronic disease. To accomplish the above, we have established partnerships with other academic, industrial and governmental entities.
I am also interested in international health and am working to develop on-line courses in disease management that incorporate telemedicine tools. Much of the world now has internet access; all of the world has serious chronic disease; connected is protected!
Our cancer resource information kiosks, funded by the Georgia Cancer Coalition's Regional Program of Excellence through the East Georgia Cancer Network can be found at Kroger (Baxter) in Athens and CVS (Hwy 129) in Hull. These kiosks provide local patients and their caregivers information they need and the contact information for resources based in Athens. The touch screen kiosk is linked to our web site, www.localhealthnet.com, which is routinely monitored by our team for evaluation purposes.
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