Health IT

John,

Thanks for your post. I think it would help the community suggest contacts for you if you shared a little more about the 'virtual nurse' you reference. How would patients interact with the 'nurse'? Would they need a phone? Computer? Smartphone?

Also, would this program target infectious disease or chronic disease?

Thanks,
Aaron

Thanks Aaron:
THe patients I am referring to would need either a phone, smartphone or computer due to the virtual nature of the contact. What we are trying to facilitate is the ability for a nurse with connection to another country to be able to give back to that country by providing virtual disease management.

'Management' implies a diagnosis?

If the patient records system can be electronic then it doesn't really matter where nursing support is located.

At the national level, communications agreements would be helpful to allow an as-needed advisory capacity for citizens to be able to contact nursing providers from a bank of volunteers regardless of location.

Quality of advice is one issue.

Impersonal contact is another.

Access to communications would be sporadic also.

An intermediary step might be virtual training along the lines of a Paramedic model.

Most likely situations are defined and indigenous community health workers are fairly highly trained in those areas.

The training can be adapted for a wide range of ability levels/skillsets and be fluid in response to emerging needs.

Most of all, it would enable knowledge wealth to be gathered in-situ.

"Pollution is a symbol of design failure."
-William McDonough

The point is that the nurses will have the ability to connect with a patient anywhere anytime. These are qualified and vetted professionals with certifications. The contact is heightened by the proactive contact by the nurse and the frequency of contact. This is intended to focus on the wellness, education, prevention and self management for people with chronic diseases. My question remains unanswered which is how do I go about connecting with an individual or group of patients in another country.

Hi John,
I don't understand exactly your question in that what kind of group would you like to be connected to and why? Are you thinking of patients with specific chronic diseases for example diabetes, tuberculosis, hypertension. Also, is the point to provide a paid service to this group where those patients would pay for such a service? Are you thinking of a specific country or region, or a language i.e. Spanish, Portuguese, creole. To me it's difficult to think of groups to refer without having more information as to what the purpose is and who this is focused on.

Warm regards,

Joaquin

___________________________________________________________________
Founder, eHealth Systems Chile
Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School/Partners In Health
Moderator, GHDOnline.org

Could you also clarify whether you are referring to 'virtual nurses' that are implemented in software versus actual humans?

I'm working on a project that is designed to replace the human healthcare provider with a virtual healthcare agent that can support patient care in remote, medically-underserved third-world areas (or, your average uninsured, urban American).

Assuming the presence of basic communications channels with the patient - phone, texting, etc., the robotic nursing coordinator will be able to continuously monitor and intervene to support patient health.

Research suggests that automated, virtual nursing providers may be far more cost-effective and reliable than humans in supporting the goals of continuity of care and high quality, evidence-based practice.

Using elastic computing infrastructure, such a system is capable of rapidly scaling out to cover very large number of patients, especially in third-world areas where human care delivery systems have tended to fail more than they have succeeded.

Using a process improvement model that relies on a knowledgebase of structured, computable care protocols that is iteratively refined and expanded over time, the system is capable of scaling up to cover increasingly complex patient health problems and care delivery scenarios.

Let me know if this sounds like a ...

Could you also clarify whether you are referring to 'virtual nurses' that are implemented in software versus actual humans?

I'm working on a project that is designed to replace the human healthcare provider with a virtual healthcare agent that can support patient care in remote, medically-underserved third-world areas (or, your average uninsured, urban American).

Assuming the presence of basic communications channels with the patient - phone, texting, etc., the robotic nursing coordinator will be able to continuously monitor and intervene to support patient health.

Research suggests that automated, virtual nursing providers may be far more cost-effective and reliable than humans in supporting the goals of continuity of care and high quality, evidence-based practice.

Using elastic computing infrastructure, such a system is capable of rapidly scaling out to cover very large number of patients, especially in third-world areas where human care delivery systems have tended to fail more than they have succeeded.

Using a process improvement model that relies on a knowledgebase of structured, computable care protocols that is iteratively refined and expanded over time, the system is capable of scaling up to cover increasingly complex patient health problems and care delivery scenarios.

Let me know if this sounds like a similar system to the one you're working on.