Telemedicine expands health care access

The explosion and sinking of the Deep Water Horizon was a vivid reminder of the dangers that oil rig workers face. Compounding the hazards are the rigs' often remote locations, many miles and precious hours away from potentially life saving health care. Recognizing this, and the more mundane need to monitor chronic conditions and non-life threatening injuries, a new niche health care industry has been born that utilizes telemedicine to bring medical care to remote locations, especially oil rigs. Oil rigs are perhaps a perfect proving ground for such technology, since they have a captive population of workers engaging in dangerous work in isolation, and yet they are surrounded with state-of-the-art communication

"Telemedicine's greatest advantage is to bridge access to care, and that is what it is doing for these oil rigs," says Alexander Vo, executive director of the Center for Tele-health Research and Policy at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB). Dr. Vo was quoted in a just-published paper in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health. Clinicians from UTMB saw over 80,000 telemedical patients last year alone. This sector is so promising that several senior tele-med experts from UTMB recently formed NuPhysicia, a company providing telemedical support to oil rigs in locations as diverse as the South China Sea, Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Mexico.

Telemedical support comes in many forms, but primarily harnesses satellite or internet communication to allow distant-physicians to communicate with patients, review vital signs, or review photos or live video streams of potential injuries, infections, wounds, or other health concerns. InPlace Medical Solutions, a self professed "Medical Solution for Extreme Environments," provides a quick and handy overview of their services in this brief slideshow.

InPlace provides its clients with a handy tech-kit that includes everything an oil rig medic would need to outfit their clinic for telemedicine. In addition to purpose-designed video equipment manufactured by Polycom, this includes a digital stethoscope, fiber-optic tools for examining and magnifying views of the eyes, ears, noses, throats, and skin, and an electronic medical record.

Other health care providers in the telemedicine marketplace include the Maritime Medical Access program at George Washington University, and Abermed in Aberdeen Scotland. While many telemedicine services promote the idea that they can help reduce costly medical evacuations, Remote Medical International combines telemedicine with evacuation services to act as a one-stop-shop for remote health care delivery and extraction. The oil industry is obviously not the only current or potential clients for these services. Any individual or industry operating in a remote locations could utilize these services, including the military, maritime shipping, outdoor adventure, wild fire services and land management, and research and exploration. They also offer interesting opportunities for the myriad gadgets, programs, and services needed to support this growing industry. TeleMedic Systems, for example, "enables health care everywhere" by providing remote medical diagnostic and communication solutions.

Photo credit: TeleMedic Systems