Sometimes You Just Can’t Call 911

How Telemedicine Is Changing Remote Operations

Telemedicine will become main stream, enabling remote monitoring and care that can be delivered to patients anywhere.

Telemedicine is remote ­access to healthcare. It can be as simple as medical ­advice over the ­telephone or as ­complex as ­robotic surgery. For most ­corporate customers with ­remote operations, it is a ­solution that ­reduces medical risk and ­transport costs, which can be ­accessed 24/7 using low-­bandwidth technologies such as a satellite phone.

PRAXES Medical Group, a Halifax-based company in Nova Scotia, creates a ­system that addresses the challenges of remote medicine by ensuring that the right physician with the appropriate skills, ­knowledge, and license is available at the right time, ­regardless of where the incident occurs.

PRAXES is a leader in providing telemedicine to support operations for industrial clients throughout Canada.

An onsite medic or first aider dealing with a ­medical incident will call the PRAXES global line and be connected to a physician who is a ­specialist in emergency care in less than five minutes. The physician will ask questions and record information in an Internet-based ­medical record. If translation services are ­required the dispatcher will patch the ­translator, the ­physician, and the caller together. All calls are voice recorded as soon as they begin.

The physician may ask the caller to email a ­photo or view the patient via a video ­application ­embedded in PRAXES TELEMED technology. The physician will diagnose the issues, offer medical advice, and record their ­recommendations in the medical record. If the incident is not a medical emergency but ­requires the advice of a specialist in ­occupational health, the emergency physician will make ­arrangements for a referral and flag the medical record for review by the PRAXES occupational health physician.

If a worker needs to go offsite for further ­treatment, the PRAXES TELEMED system can send a medical report to the receiving ­institution and can also automatically send an alert to the designated company manager via email or text message. In all cases, the immediate response by PRAXES TELEMED ensures that the incident is handled quickly; the likelihood of a Medevac is reduced, and there is a greater probability that the worker will have a safe and rapid return to work.

The combination of the highly trained and ­experienced physician team, unique ­protocols, and the PRAXES proprietary software ensure ­service guarantees and make the system unique in the world. PRAXES offers the only ­telemedicine services that include ­guaranteed response times, specialist physicians,­translation services, electronic medical ­records, and ­automated alerts. Many industrial clients are ­already demanding more advanced ­services from their medical providers, and as ­communication technology improves for remote locations, this demand for anytime, anywhere expert medical advice will only increase.

Technologies and methods developed for ­industry will become common in the ­public healthcare system as it seeks to reduce ­overheads, travel time, staffing, and location pressures. The public will see the results that we now see in industry—reduced cost and improved service. Instead of bringing patients to the services (hospitals), the system will bring the services to the patient when they need it, and where they need it. Telemedicine will become main stream, enabling remote monitoring and care that can be delivered to patients anywhere.

Remote medical incidents can quickly become lost-time injuries which mean big costs for the operators. As the average age of workers ­continues to increase, employers will have to manage more health issues that affect their employees. TELEMED remote medical advice is a tool that employers can use to access advice when they need it.

Currently, the U.K.-based 2013 Round the World Yacht Race is now in discussions with PRAXES to provide TELEMED services to ­support next year’s race—13 yachts and crews will spend 11 months, traveling 40,000 miles over the world’s most dangerous oceans. Another ­Atlantic ­Canadian company leading the way!