Will US TeleMedicine Be DOA?

Intel, GE and the Mayo Clinic said they would conduct a year-long study to find out if remotely monitoring patients via gear made by the two companies and hooked up to a home broadband connection can keep them out of emergency rooms. The move ties in nicely with a chat I had yesterday with Dr. Mohit Kaushal, director of health care for the FCC's Broadband Strategy Initiative, about encouraging broadband use in medical care. In many ways, the U.S. is still behind the curve when it comes to using technology in medical care, not because the technology industry isn't interested in providing software and hardware, but because of a failure on the part of doctors to use the technology and on the part of Medicare and other government-sponsored health programs to pay for health outcomes rather than procedures, said Dr. Kaushal. Plus, in many areas, especially rural ones where physicians are scarce, the broadband network just isn't up to speed.