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Unveiling Telestroke Medicine and its Applications

By Maggie Chu

In the words of the National Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a stroke is a brain attack. What makes stroke terrifying is how quickly it permanently damages the brain when oxygen is no longer supplied to support brain function, making time an incredibly rare resource in these circumstances. To save time in the treatment of a stroke, a new telemedicine approach to stroke treatment, called telestroke medicine, is one of the most successful implementations of telemedicine that helps administer emergency treatment to patients just in time. In this article, we will give an overview of how telestroke medicine operates and discuss some of its advantages and implementations.

What is Telestroke Medicine and How Does It Work?

An elderly patient laying on a hospital bed, communicating with a doctor through a telemedicine cart with a telehealth camera and screen that allows the patient to see the doctor.

Mayo Clinic defines telestroke medicine, or stroke telemedicine, as treating stroke from a distant location. The patient at the originating site will be treated by stroke specialists from a distant site through the use of telecommunication equipment such as high-resolution telehealth cameras, medical monitors, internet and digital imaging communication systems, teleconferencing software, smartphones/tablets, and sometimes even through robotic telepresence. This allows the stroke specialists from the distant site to observe the real-time state of the patient to make accurate assessments and diagnoses.

This outlines the basic procedures of telestroke medicine:

  1. Diagnostic/Neurological Examinations: The health practitioners on the originating site often start with imaging and diagnostic tests through telehealth cameras that track eye movement and digital imaging like CT scans to enable the stroke team on the distant site to identify the type of stroke, determine the best treatment approach, and provide guidance to the health practitioners via a teleconferencing session. The specialist team often consists of neurologists, radiologists, and possibly neurosurgeons, all of whom offer their expertise in the case of a stroke occurring.
  2. Administration of Treatment: If the originating site has the proper personnel and equipment to administer treatment, treatment can begin immediately. Ischemic stroke is often treated with thrombolytic therapy if a stroke patient arrives within the 4.5-hour treatment window. Decisions about further interventions, like mechanical thrombectomy, are also made at this time. In the case of hemorrhagic stroke, reducing bleeding in the brain is of utmost importance, sometimes even requiring surgery.
  3. Continued Monitoring, Care, and Rehabilitation: Continuous monitoring of the patient is then conducted in a stroke unit or ICU, so health practitioners can continuously care for the patient and conduct patient monitoring remotely and rehabilitation planning. After treatment can be conducted through telerehabilitation, making rehabilitation more accessible.

Advantages of Telestroke Medicine

Why should healthcare practitioners integrate telestroke medicine into their stroke treatment? The most convincing reasons are to save time and increase patient accessibility to stroke prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation.

  • Reduction of Time to Receiving Treatment: Undoubtedly, the biggest difference between Telestroke Medicine and Traditional Stroke Treatment is the time in which it can start. Telestroke medicine can begin much earlier than traditional stroke treatments, substantially reducing the risk of mortality and resulting in better patient outcomes due to faster intervention.
  • Increased Accessibility to Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation: People who live in non-urban areas — such as seniors, rural residents, Indigenous people, or low-income individuals — have a harder time traveling longer distances to receive stroke treatment. With telestroke medicine, these groups gain more access to stroke specialists. Stroke prevention and telerehabilitation are also simpler for patients, as they can access it at a location closer to home or even access from home.
  • Reduce Costs: Since in-patient treatment and rehabilitation are extremely costly, hospitals can take advantage of telestroke networks, which according to research can help hospitals save over US$350,000 per year and US$2,227 per patient in nursing home costs.
A comparison comparing traditional and telestroke advantages and disadvantages, in terms of Time, Accessibility, and Financial Costs.

Embracing Telestroke Medicine — A Prime Model of Effective Telehealth

Telestroke medicine emerges as a transformative force in stroke treatment, bridging the gap between patients and specialized care regardless of geographical constraints. By leveraging technology to assist with diagnosis and intervention, telestroke not only saves crucial time but also extends the reach of stroke specialists to communities previously underserved.

Applications of Telestroke Medicine

Rural Telestroke Care

Telestroke medicine differing from traditional stroke treatment uses technologies and communication tools to involve specialists from a distant site to help diagnose and treat local patients with VTE problems or stroke. After emergency procedures are implemented on the patient, telestroke medicine in the rural setting starts upon the patient’s arrival at the originating site, often a small rural health facility such as critical access hospitals (CAH) in the US. The originating site connects with the distant site, generally a larger urban hospital such as tertiary hospitals with stroke centers. The neurological specialists in the distant site will instruct the healthcare practitioners in the originating site on diagnosis and treatment. They may share clinical protocols from their hospital and cooperate to develop systems customized for their rural facility.

Advantages

  • No need to hire an in-house specialist: In typical stroke care, a hospital needs to have an in-house neurology specialist. With telestroke medicine, the rural hospital does not have to afford an in-house neurology specialist while enjoying the benefits of having one.
  • Better Allocation of Resources: The rural hospital can utilize its limited resources on the equipment that reaps the greatest benefits such as essential medical equipment utilized the most (such as digital imaging and communication systems, smartphones, and tablets) and telemedicine equipment (such as medical-grade telehealth cameras and software or telehealth carts) for more advanced and specialized treatment.
  • Minimal Waiting Time and Transfer Time: When truly impossible for the rural health facility to handle alone, a patient can be transferred safely with the instruction and supervision of the remote specialist to a larger hospital when necessary. This minimizes the time the patient is waiting and unsupervised and helps drastically improve the chances of recovery for stroke patients.

Urban Telestroke Care

While telestroke care is most commonly applied in the rural setting, the large urban hospital can also utilize the telestroke medicine setup for better treatment results, the earlier the better: such as on the ambulance. In this case, the originating site would be where the patient and emergency medics are and the distant site would be the large urban hospital.

If an urban hospital established a mobile stroke unit in the ambulance, it would be possible to administer higher-quality treatment earlier rather than just maintaining and monitoring a patient’s vitals. The distant site neurological specialists can instruct the emergency medics in the originating site on diagnosis and treatment.

If a hospital established a telestroke medicine setup between the urgent care center and the neurologist, then higher quality treatment again can be administered at an earlier time, leading to better treatment results.

Advantages

  • Earliest treatment time possible: stroke-specific treatment can begin once emergency medics arrive where the patient is located. Time of treatment is one of the crucial indicators of how well a patient will recover after a stroke.

Embracing Telestroke Medicine — A Prime Model of Effective Telehealth

Telestroke medicine emerges as a transformative force in stroke treatment, bridging the gap between patients and specialized care regardless of geographical constraints. By leveraging technology to assist with diagnosis and intervention, telestroke not only saves crucial time but also extends the reach of stroke specialists to communities previously underserved while saving precious time for treatment.

Explore how AVer’s Connected Health Solutions offer a win-win for everyone involved and the future of Telestroke Medicine.

References

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Unveiling Telestroke Medicine and its Applications Bridging Distances, Saving Lives

By Maggie Chu

In the words of the National Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a stroke is a brain attack. What makes stroke terrifying is how quickly it permanently damages the brain when oxygen is no longer supplied to support brain function, making time an incredibly rare resource in these circumstances. To save time in the treatment of a stroke, a new telemedicine approach to stroke treatment, called telestroke medicine, is one of the most successful implementations of telemedicine that helps administer emergency treatment to patients just in time. In this article, we will give an overview of how telestroke medicine operates and discuss some of its advantages and implementations.

What is Telestroke Medicine and How Does It Work?

An elderly patient laying on a hospital bed, communicating with a doctor through a telemedicine cart with a telehealth camera and screen that allows the patient to see the doctor.

Mayo Clinic defines telestroke medicine, or stroke telemedicine, as treating stroke from a distant location. The patient at the originating site will be treated by stroke specialists from a distant site through the use of telecommunication equipment such as high-resolution telehealth cameras, medical monitors, internet and digital imaging communication systems, teleconferencing software, smartphones/tablets, and sometimes even through robotic telepresence. This allows the stroke specialists from the distant site to observe the real-time state of the patient to make accurate assessments and diagnoses.

This outlines the basic procedures of telestroke medicine:

  1. Diagnostic/Neurological Examinations: The health practitioners on the originating site often start with imaging and diagnostic tests through telehealth cameras that track eye movement and digital imaging like CT scans to enable the stroke team on the distant site to identify the type of stroke, determine the best treatment approach, and provide guidance to the health practitioners via a teleconferencing session. The specialist team often consists of neurologists, radiologists, and possibly neurosurgeons, all of whom offer their expertise in the case of a stroke occurring.
  2. Administration of Treatment: If the originating site has the proper personnel and equipment to administer treatment, treatment can begin immediately. Ischemic stroke is often treated with thrombolytic therapy if a stroke patient arrives within the 4.5-hour treatment window. Decisions about further interventions, like mechanical thrombectomy, are also made at this time. In the case of hemorrhagic stroke, reducing bleeding in the brain is of utmost importance, sometimes even requiring surgery.
  3. Continued Monitoring, Care, and Rehabilitation: Continuous monitoring of the patient is then conducted in a stroke unit or ICU, so health practitioners can continuously care for the patient and conduct patient monitoring remotely and rehabilitation planning. After treatment can be conducted through telerehabilitation, making rehabilitation more accessible.

Advantages of Telestroke Medicine

Why should healthcare practitioners integrate telestroke medicine into their stroke treatment? The most convincing reasons are to save time and increase patient accessibility to stroke prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation.

  • Reduction of Time to Receiving Treatment: Undoubtedly, the biggest difference between Telestroke Medicine and Traditional Stroke Treatment is the time in which it can start. Telestroke medicine can begin much earlier than traditional stroke treatments, substantially reducing the risk of mortality and resulting in better patient outcomes due to faster intervention.
  • Increased Accessibility to Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation: People who live in non-urban areas — such as seniors, rural residents, Indigenous people, or low-income individuals — have a harder time traveling longer distances to receive stroke treatment. With telestroke medicine, these groups gain more access to stroke specialists. Stroke prevention and telerehabilitation are also simpler for patients, as they can access it at a location closer to home or even access from home.
  • Reduce Costs: Since in-patient treatment and rehabilitation are extremely costly, hospitals can take advantage of telestroke networks, which according to research can help hospitals save over US$350,000 per year and US$2,227 per patient in nursing home costs.
A comparison comparing traditional and telestroke advantages and disadvantages, in terms of Time, Accessibility, and Financial Costs.

Embracing Telestroke Medicine — A Prime Model of Effective Telehealth

Telestroke medicine emerges as a transformative force in stroke treatment, bridging the gap between patients and specialized care regardless of geographical constraints. By leveraging technology to assist with diagnosis and intervention, telestroke not only saves crucial time but also extends the reach of stroke specialists to communities previously underserved.

Applications of Telestroke Medicine

Rural Telestroke Care

Telestroke medicine differing from traditional stroke treatment uses technologies and communication tools to involve specialists from a distant site to help diagnose and treat local patients with VTE problems or stroke. After emergency procedures are implemented on the patient, telestroke medicine in the rural setting starts upon the patient’s arrival at the originating site, often a small rural health facility such as a critical access hospital (CAH) in the US. The originating site connects with the distant site, generally a larger urban hospital such as a tertiary hospital with stroke centers. The neurological specialists in the distant site will instruct the healthcare practitioners in the originating site on diagnosis and treatment. They may share clinical protocols from their hospital and cooperate to develop systems customized for their rural facility.

Advantages

  • No need to hire an in-house specialist: In typical stroke care, a hospital needs to have an in-house neurology specialist. With telestroke medicine, the rural hospital does not have to afford an in-house neurology specialist while enjoying the benefits of having one.
  • Better Allocation of Resources: The rural hospital can utilize its limited resources on the equipment that reaps the greatest benefits such as essential medical equipment utilized the most (such as digital imaging and communication systems, smartphones, and tablets) and telemedicine equipment (such as medical-grade telehealth cameras and software or telehealth carts) for more advanced and specialized treatment.
  • Minimal Waiting Time and Transfer Time: When truly impossible for the rural health facility to handle alone, a patient can be transferred safely with the instruction and supervision of the remote specialist to a larger hospital when necessary. This minimizes the time the patient is waiting and unsupervised and helps drastically improve the chances of recovery for stroke patients.

Urban Telestroke Care

While telestroke care is most commonly applied in the rural setting, the large urban hospital can also utilize the telestroke medicine setup for better treatment results, the earlier the better: such as on the ambulance. In this case, the originating site would be where the patient and emergency medics are and the distant site would be the large urban hospital.

If an urban hospital established a mobile stroke unit in the ambulance, it would be possible to administer higher-quality treatment earlier rather than just maintaining and monitoring a patient’s vitals. The distant site neurological specialists can instruct the emergency medics in the originating site on diagnosis and treatment.

If a hospital established a telestroke medicine setup between the urgent care center and the neurologist, then higher quality treatment again can be administered at an earlier time, leading to better treatment results.

Advantages

  • Earliest treatment time possible: stroke-specific treatment can begin once emergency medics arrive where the patient is located. Time of treatment is one of the crucial indicators of how well a patient will recover after a stroke.

Embracing Telestroke Medicine — A Prime Model of Effective Telehealth

Telestroke medicine emerges as a transformative force in stroke treatment, bridging the gap between patients and specialized care regardless of geographical constraints. By leveraging technology to assist with diagnosis and intervention, telestroke not only saves crucial time but also extends the reach of stroke specialists to communities previously underserved while saving precious time for treatment.

Explore how AVer’s Connected Health Solutions offer a win-win for everyone involved and the future of Telestroke Medicine.

References

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Telemedicine and Camera Technology

By Aaron Case

Remote connectivity is changing just about every aspect of the world as we know it. Entire companies are switching to a WFH model, schools are going hybrid, and live entertainment is moving to Zoom. Even hospitals are getting into the video conferencing game, expanding the reach of quality health care to include unreached segments of the global population with what’s known as telemedicine.

While you’ve probably heard the term telemedicine bandied about in the media and online, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to understanding what exactly it is. So, let’s start unpacking!

Telemedicine: What Is It?

A quick Google search will yield many definitions of telemedicine. We’re going to cut through the noise and take you right to the World Health Organization’s definition:

“The delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education of health care providers, all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities.”

In plainer terms, telemedicine takes place when physicians diagnose and treat patients who can’t be physically present or when technology is used to advance medical knowledge.

Technology Needed for Telemedicine

Telemedicine could be as simple as a doctor discussing internal symptoms and viewing pictures of visible outbreaks with a patient on a Zoom call. Also, when a hospital has limited resources, physicians can gather data and take X-rays to send to a specialist at another hospital for evaluation. In some cases, patients use basic medical technology at home to supply data that helps doctors diagnose them. Telemedicine also includes devices used to broadcast and record surgeries for evaluation by medical students.

Our focus for now is on devices that let health care providers and their patients communicate with each other at a distance. Here are some types of cameras commonly used for telemedicine:

  • Video conferencing cameras – These premium-quality cameras give people on both ends of a remote checkup the necessary clarity for diagnosing visible symptoms via up to 4K imaging and high frame rates. Also, wide-angle lenses enable users to use more of their space.
  • Auto tracking cameras – The latest Pro AV solutions are ideal for delivering telemedicine education. Auto tracking functions follow medical school professors in classrooms or every move of surgeons in operating rooms—and the best options track without requiring targets to wear any extra devices.
  • Visualizers (document cameras) – Doctors can use a visualizer’s high-level optical zoom to look into medical samples with a microscope, evaluate an X-ray with a lightbox, and examine wounds. The visualizer can also capture images or record videos of the examination process.

It’s important to use premium cameras for telemedicine so you can maintain professionalism and deliver the most accurate results possible.

As technology progresses, expect to see telemedicine capability and availability expand. Click the button below to browse the camera technology you’ll need to get started!

Transition to Telemedicine

About the Author

Aaron Case is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. He crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts.

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Utilizing Telehealth in Physician Training with Medical Grade Cameras

By Stephanie Pan

Just like how modern technology is well integrated in the business and education industries, the field of healthcare has also been steadily incorporating digital technology to improve the well-being of patients on a global scale. In our past AVer Experts, we have introduced the concept of telemedicine and how medical-grade cameras can help improve patient care in various healthcare situations. Today, we will take a step in a different direction and look at the utilization of technology in healthcare on a broader scale called “telehealth”, or more specifically, the use of telehealth in physician training via medical grade cameras. But before we get into the details of why and how, let’s first understand the difference between the two commonly used healthcare terms.

Although telemedicine and telehealth both emphasize on making communication and collaboration easier in healthcare settings, there is a distinct difference between the two. According to the International Organization of Standardization, telemedicine is defined as the “use of technologies to exchange health information and provide health care services across geographic, time, social and cultural barriers”, while telehealth is the ‘use of technologies for the purpose of providing telemedicine, medical education, and health education over a distance’. Based on these definitions, we can see that the former focuses on the practice of medicine using technology to deliver remote care while the latter uses technology on a broader scale for remote healthcare services that go beyond the doctor-patient relationship. This means unlike telemedicine, telehealth can also refer to remote non-clinical services such as education/physician training and health promotion.

Why Do We Need Telehealth for Physician Training?

So now that we understand the difference between telehealth and telemedicine, let’s move on to the main discussion of the day: physician training via telehealth. As technology becomes more affordable and accessible around the world, telehealth is gaining attention as the next potential solution to the healthcare industry, including the use of digital technology to deliver medical education and physician training. In fact, when COVID-19 first rattled the world, many physician training and residency programs were shifted to telehealth due to social distancing measures (much like how clinical care transitioned to telemedicine). Furthermore, some medical students were either pulled from their programs or had their internships put on halt, disrupting not only their education but also limiting their academic opportunities.

However, this absence of in-person teaching also allowed a unique time for telehealth usage to surge, resulting in an increase of 38X higher than before the pandemic. What’s more is that the pandemic has also redefined what and how care is delivered, prompting universities and clinics to consider offering programs and curriculums that can help future physicians prepare for remote healthcare services. With the demand for telehealth being greater than ever, it is critical that we embrace this digital movement to ensure the future of healthcare is continuously improving.

How Camera Technology Fits into the Picture

With all this talk about the rise of telehealth and its usage in physician training, it is also important to mention one of the most significant factors that contribute to the success of online medical teaching: the camera. While there are other elements that are required for any virtual teaching to work, without the right camera technology in medical education, physician training via telehealth will not succeed. This is because compared to normal online classes, physician training often requires a clear visual demonstration of the medical encounter at hand. Without a good medical-grade camera that can provide high-quality images and precise close-up shots of whatever the doctor is looking at, it would be difficult for the remote trainees to learn effectively. By utilizing a medical-grade camera, doctors can ensure the trainees experience these medical demonstrations in real-time and provide them with instant feedback to any questions they may have.

While it is true that an ordinary camera can also provide live streaming and snapshotting capabilities, and therefore be sufficient for simple diagnoses or medical surveillances, this will not be enough for physician training. Unlike professional doctors who have years of experience and knowledge under their belts, residents who are still learning would need more than just a few far-away shots of the medical procedure, especially when they are learning virtually for the time being. As doctors rely heavily on imaging-based diagnoses, it is equally important for physicians-in-training to be able to recognize and be familiar with the visual information given in order to properly diagnose a patient. Hence, it is crucial that good medical-grade cameras are utilized in telehealth for physician training to ensure the quality of medical education and performance is not affected despite the ongoing pandemic.

To further understand and explore the possibility of medical-grade cameras, head over to the link below.

Discover Now

About the Author

Stephanie Pan is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts.

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Tele-ICU – Transforming Critical Care Delivery

By Edmund McGowan

The past few years have stretched healthcare systems worldwide to the limit, forcing them to rapidly adapt in the battle against COVID-19. Nurse burnout and high turnover rates among ICU staff are a persistent problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. A 2019 National Academies of Medicine study reported that up to 54% of nurses and physicians suffered from burnout.

Challenges that healthcare systems have faced from the pandemic, notably the lack of critical care nurses (also called intensivists) have catalyzed the global demand for Tele-ICU in healthcare. Tele-ICU allows remote intensivists and doctors to observe a patient using real-time audiovisual communication. This, along with electronic monitoring and access to patients’ medical data connects remote specialists to onsite caregivers. This system maximizes manpower: time spent doing hospital rounds can be used for more important care duties.

Implementation of Tele-ICU also reduces the financial burden on hospitals associated with employee burnout and turnover. A 2018 Medscape study found that 23% of respondents felt that burnout could be reduced by increasing doctors’ sense of control and autonomy. Tele-ICU can provide both control and autonomy to overworked employees engaged in the crucial duty of saving lives.

Why is Tele-ICU the solution?

Tele-ICU concentrates and maximizes a facility’s clinical resources and addresses intensivist shortages by allowing remote intensivists to care for multiple patients simultaneously. Bedside nurses are able to make better use of their time, attending to more important care duties instead of doing nursing rounds. Furthermore, Tele-ICU is a cost-effective system, reducing hospital length of stay by 36% according to a Taylor and Francis study.

The benefits of Tele-ICU are manifold and save more lives at a lower cost. A nine-year-long study in Cleveland found an 18% decrease in mortality risk for Tele-ICU patients. This is made possible in part by lower intensivist-to-patient ratios. The instant nature of Tele-ICU allows bedside nurses to quickly respond to any alerts from the Tele-ICU system, and immediately contact intensivists for guidance in best practice. Providing patients with correct treatment in turn decreases malpractice, mortality rates, and associated costs.

Global shortages in critical care specialists and the urbanized nature of medical facilities, specifically in developing countries have historically impeded patient access to specialist care. Tele-ICU allows clinics in even the most remote areas to have instant access to intensivists and specialist physicians who are able to advise bedside nurses. Also, patients who would normally have to travel great distances to access specialist care can now be treated in their local communities, where they are provided with a higher quality of care.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has become an essential, and often scarce commodity for medical staff caring for patients in Covid isolation wards. Owing to its remote nature, Tele-ICU reduces the need for staff to repeatedly don PPE when entering isolation wards, saving on PPE resources and time, as well as reducing the risk of cross-infection among healthcare workers.

How does Tele-ICU work?

Tele-ICU uses PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) cameras to provide real-time, complete coverage of a patient’s room, leaving no blind spots. Remote intensivists also have instant access to medical data and patients’ vital signs helping them to advise onsite staff accordingly. Instant bedside monitoring and two-way communication give hospitals 24/7 access to remote intensivists and specialist physicians.

There are two main models of Tele-ICU. The first model is multiple satellite ICU facilities connected to a central remote health facility staffed with intensivists and doctors. In this care model, onsite caregivers have round-the-clock, instant access to expert guidance and assistance. This model is particularly effective in connecting clinics in understaffed rural areas to remote specialists.

The second model has been widely embraced by hospitals to safely care for patients in isolation wards during the pandemic. Multiple patient rooms can be monitored by staff in a remote centralized room or a nursing station in the same hospital, and patients can be safely observed in detail and attended to as needed.

Tele-ICU provides a dynamic, much-needed solution to multiple issues in today’s medical sector. By saving lives and saving resources, Tele-ICU will become a long-term integral part of global healthcare.

About the Author

Edmund McGowan is a brand content strategist at AVer Information, working out of New Taipei City, Taiwan. He is a widely published writer and translator with two decades of experience in the field of bridging linguistic and cultural gaps between Chinese and English. A proud owner of two Formosan Mountain Dogs, he enjoys the forests and coasts of North Taiwan.

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A Medical Grade PTZ Camera to Revolutionize Patient Monitoring

By Maggie Chu

In recent years, hospitals and nursing homes have been having a hard time caring for patients and residents due to limited caregivers. With this problem in mind, AVer has been dedicated to creating with our capabilities a tool to enable healthcare professionals to achieve better patient care, hence the birth of the MD120UI, the first medical-grade PTZ camera designed for patient monitoring.

In this article, we interviewed AVer product manager Andrew Lee on the newly launched MD120UI, delving into the intricacies of the device and exploring its capabilities, benefits, and the profound impact it promises to have on healthcare facilities worldwide.

Q: Could you tell us what specifically inspired the creation of the MD120UI?

A: In the medical world, currently there are a few major issues encountered by healthcare professionals.

First off, the global population is getting older. More elderly people need care, yet there are limited people who can provide that care, whether it’s in nursing homes or hospitals. This brings us to another important issue—the global nursing shortage. Especially after COVID, people are reluctant to pursue nursing as a career, so those already working as nurses are encountering more work and longer hours, often leading to high burnout rates that exacerbate the problem. If the problem continues at the current trajectory, the US will have a shortage of 13 million nurses by 2030. The situation has worsened to the point that many hospitals are resorting to reducing inpatient capacity to lessen the strain on their nurses, even though there are more people who need care.

We realized that health workers spend much of their time doing rounds to check on patients, and with our camera capabilities, we saw that we could create value by letting them check on their patients remotely. If we combined high-quality imaging technology, providing medical practitioners instant access to any patient from the nursing station or even on their mobile devices, we could help alleviate a lot of pressure on hospitals. So that’s why the MD120UI was created.

Q: Could you briefly introduce us to the MD120UI and its main advantages?

A: The MD120UI is the first medical grade PTZ camera designed for patient monitoring. In recent years, hospitals have been focusing on integrating medical data into nursing station systems, so that nurses can monitor the vital signs of many patients at the same time. Now, nursing stations are shifting focus to incorporating video as well, because many conditions aren’t obvious when monitoring data but are clear as night and day when you see the patients in real-time. Products on the market currently, like security cameras, don’t generate high-quality imaging, but the MD120UI offers exceptional imaging capabilities with a great zoom lens and AI eye tracking functionality.

The MD120UI also supports PoE+, which means it can receive power over Ethernet. Rather than a mess of cables coming out from behind the device, PoE+ allows hospitals to have the MD120UI up and running with only one Ethernet cable, simplifying setup and lower the cost for installation significantly.

Before the launch of our medical grade cameras, we always have actual hospitals test out our products to ensure proper product functionality and satisfaction of the medical practitioners. By the time we launch our medical grade cameras, the products will have undergone meticulous testing and review by the hospital staff, they are the reason why we can keep offering top-of-the-line cameras with patient-centered design.

Q: We heard that this model’s AI features are impressive. Could you tell us more about what the MD120UI can do?

A: Straight out of the box, the MD120UI has built-in AI eye-tracking capability. The reason for developing this is after speaking with doctors and nurses, we learned that observing patients’ eyes can help detect signs of early stroke and other neurodegenerative disorders. The MD120UI has 20X Zoom capability, allowing doctors and nurses to examine patients’ eyes with extreme clarity from the nursing station or even from their mobile phones, with this tracking function, observing patients and assessing their conditions remotely can be much easier and quicker.

Other AI functionalities currently under development include AI Alert detection and Fall/Egress detection. The former is for health practitioners to be immediately alerted if an alarm in a patient ward goes off. Fall Detection is for ensuring patients who accidentally fall off their beds to receive immediate help while Egress Detection is for patients who attempt to escape the ward, particularly useful for monitoring elderly patients, dementia patients, or even suicidal patients. Elderly patients often want to leave the hospital and go home, while dementia patients cannot remember why they are in the hospital and simply attempt to leave. By detecting when patients fall off their bed or leave their bed, we can help prevent patients from accidental harm, preserving the health and safety of the patients.

Q: How did the team manage to develop the AI features? Did you encounter any issues in the development process?

A: In the development of eye tracking, we encountered some problems at first in identifying people with beards and people with masks on at first. In the beginning, our system would not be able to recognize faces with beards and masks as a face, and we had to teach our AI what faces with beards and masks looked like. After showing our system a larger database of images with bearded and masked people, our AI improved significantly and now has no problem with identifying the eyes of bearded or masked people, even in dark rooms using the camera’s infrared sensor.

Q: What software is the MD120UI compatible with?

A: If your hospital has a designated electronic health record (EHR) system, the MD120UI is compatible and can be easily integrated into most EHR systems, and we have established partnerships with many of the largest EHR vendors.

If your hospital does not utilize a specific EHR system, we created AVer Viewcare just for you. It is a basic software designed for hospitals that need an intuitive, easy-to-use system to manage their AVer cameras. One of the hospitals that has adopted AVer Viewcare gives us positive reviews of the system and tells us that it has all the necessary controls for a hospital that doesn’t integrate its camera system with its EHR systems. Viewcare will also be updated when we release new functions to cameras.

Also worth mentioning is that the MD120UI can be accessed through the PTZ Control Panel app for iPads or iPhones in the hospital, which is particularly useful when nurses or doctors are on the move but still need to check on specific patients.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to tell people about the MD120UI?

A: I’d like to reiterate that the MD120UI is a groundbreaking medical grade PTZ camera, emerging as a transformative solution for the pressing challenges faced by healthcare facilities worldwide. With an aging population and a shortage of healthcare providers, patient care has never been more demanding. The MD120UI addresses these concerns head-on, offering healthcare professionals a powerful tool to remotely monitor patients with exceptional imaging capabilities, AI features like eye tracking, and crucial functionalities like AI Alert Tracking and Fall Detection. AVer’s commitment to innovation shines through in this device, complemented by the user-friendly AVer Viewcare software, ensuring that healthcare facilities can adapt and thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of modern healthcare. We are confident that the MD120UI will bring progress and promise of a brighter future for patient care worldwide.

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Hospitals Can Reduce Nurses’ Workloads via New Technologies

By Maggie Chu

Being a nurse is one of the most stressful and physically taxing professions one can pursue. Nurses accomplish a wide variety of tasks in the hospital, including assisting doctors in surgery, lifting patients up, charting patient health metrics, and scavenging for medical equipment, it requires both intelligence and stamina to care for patients properly. Especially after Covid, the heavy workloads, burnout, and stress in nursing are further contributing to growing nursing shortages.

Diving into this issue, a recent McKinsey report indicates nurses wish they could spend more time on patient care and less time on documentation and other support tasks. The good news is that there are many technologies nowadays that can assist nurses in providing better patient care and simplifying support tasks.

Patient Care

For patient care, there are multiple categories of products that can assist nurses in their day-to-day work. From patient monitoring cameras to medical robots, a variety of innovative devices can be utilized to ease the workload of nurses.

Medical-grade PTZ cameras are among the best devices used for patient monitoring. A video stream of the patient is extremely helpful in knowing the status of a patient, with many cameras capable of setting preset areas to look at, and now some cameras can zoom in up to 20 times. Other useful equipment includes the smart bed, which is extremely useful for tracking patient metrics, such as weight, movement, sleep, and vital signs. There are even patient care robots that provide emotional support, bathing, or even surgery assistance, all of which would help nurses achieve a higher level of care for all patients.

Charting and Documentation

A major task in a nurse’s day is charting and documenting patient metrics. Traditionally, this was done by pen and paper, but many have invested in digital transformation to build electronic health records (EHRs), which makes the data more easily accessible for those who need the information. Recording in a digital EHR by typing is still time-consuming, which is why more manufacturers are creating AI voice assistants for EHR systems. With the capability to listen and analyze information during patient visits, voice assistants can help record information immediately without the practitioner having to input data by hand, saving an immense amount of time and enabling nurses to focus on patient care and peer coaching.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting and gathering take up around 45 minutes of a nurse’s day, and when added up, an astonishing estimate states that a 200-bed hospital could move “meals, linens, lab samples, waste, and other items the equivalent of 53 miles per day.” That amount of transportation could be better delegated to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) like the TUG, which are essentially transportation robots that self-navigate with Li-DAR or other mapping technologies to deliver equipment and goods to the proper patients or practitioners. Some AMRs can even disinfect and administer medication.

Nurses Need Intuitive, Efficient Technology

Nurses are some of the most hardworking heroes in our healthcare system, and with new healthcare technologies available in the industry, hospitals should embrace them to alleviate nurses’ workloads. These technologies can help nurses in many ways, such as fostering better work environments for nurses, increasing nurse turnover, and reducing the rate of nurse burnout.

While these technologies will help nurses achieve more in less time, there are still some obstacles to technology adoption. One of the major issues is that some nurses, particularly those who are older in age, may feel that there are too many new technologies and practices to learn and adjust to. The next challenge for healthcare device manufacturers may be to create devices that are more intuitive so that nurses can quickly adapt to new technologies and immediately experience an increase in work efficiency, and we look forward to what technologies may bring to the future of healthcare.

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Pioneering a New Era of Telehealth: AVer’s Revolutionary Detachable-Head Medical Grade Cameras

For many medical professionals and patients, telehealth is seen as a “silver lining” of the coronavirus pandemic. Telehealth is not a new technology, but one that took off in 2020 due to practical necessity. Avoidance of in-person meetings and doctor’s visits reduced the spread of coronavirus and resulted in the swift evolution of remote meetings and medical consultation hardware and apps. Telehealth provides safe, convenient, remote patient consultation and diagnosis with 98.3% overall patient satisfaction according to a ResearchGate study.
Telehealth is now an intrinsic part of healthcare services worldwide. It is a rapidly expanding market and part of a wider digital healthcare revolution. The forecast is bright for telehealth. The industry is growing at a CAGR of 25.90% from 2021 to 2030 according to a study by Allied Market Research. The applications of telehealth, from telemedicine to telemonitoring are rapidly growing and diverse. Telehealth offers patients choices through increased digital engagement, giving them the power to decide who delivers their care.
Telehealth services today still have several commonly encountered pain points. Staff using medical carts equipped with PTZ cameras often report difficulty controlling the cameras. This is primarily a result of latency caused by internet speed, causing operators to over-pan when capturing details of patients. Remote doctors also struggle to obtain images and videos in true color. Capturing images in true color is essential for remote doctors in order to view details of skin, veins, and wounds such as burns. For remote doctors, receiving images and video without true color, adds to the challenge of making correct diagnoses. Lastly, sometimes patients have difficulty speaking loud enough for microphones to pick up their voices clearly.
AVer addresses the swiftly evolving needs of the telehealth industry. Through understanding and addressing the needs of medical professionals, AVer has produced revolutionary medical cameras with the hope of benefiting the community. Read on to discover more.

In the early days of the pandemic, many ICU units were at full capacity and it was inevitable that there would be a shortage of caregivers. In order to protect themselves from the virus, nurses had to change into isolation gowns before entering the ICU. Donning and doffing isolation gowns along with other necessary PPE takes around twenty minutes. Sometimes, patients were in need of emergency medical intervention, but by the time the nurses could enter to treat them, it was too late. Everything was separated by a thick layer of glass; doctors had to give instructions during emergencies when they couldn’t properly communicate with patients.

Numerical physiological signs can be observed, but many things cannot be expressed through data, and there are bound to be gaps in communication. While medical crews worldwide were worrying about whether there was a smarter solution to the isolation ward, the Director of the ICU department at a large hospital in New Taipei City thought of the first possible responder and neighbor: AVer.

AVer’s main products are education technology and video conferencing solutions. It is one of the world’s top three visualizer manufacturers, with more than twenty years of image processing and video decoding at its core technology foundation. Although this expertise seems unconnected to the medical world, the ICU Director had a vision, “I imagined the patient in the ward and the doctor outside the ward. If there was a camera in the middle, they would be connected.” The ICU Director said with a smile.

When AVer heard the news, the company immediately decided to support the hospital unconditionally. As the pandemic swept across the world, frontline medical staff had the toughest job of all. AVer understood the need to support them and make a contribution to the medical industry. Furthermore, this was AVer’s first step in designing medical products.

When AVer received the request for help from the hospital, it quickly built a team. At first, many difficulties presented themselves, especially communication gaps between AVer and the hospital. For example, the request from the hospital was, “I want to see the patients clearly and I want to hear voices on the ward.” So AVer’s engineers needed to uncover the practical problems and find solutions. Namely, did they want to see the whole ward or the details of a single patient? What are the zoom times, in order for them to see patients in detail? During the process of developing this product, AVer encountered many other problems.

AVer Connected Health Solution’s Manager James Liao told us, “We encountered an issue with the setup. Unable to enter the ICU except for during specific times, and because there were a lot of patients simultaneously, we couldn’t test onsite. From the transmission bandwidth to the wiring diagrams, and the exact position, these could only be communicated through video. Finally, the actual set up schedule was tight; we needed to do it quickly, just as a patient was discharged, eventually the setting up of cameras in 30 ICU units and the customization of software for the nursing station took two weeks.” James further added, “We invested more than 0.5 million USD and another 10 months in the product development of the MD330U Series mainly based on this experience and feedback from physicians, making the innovative PTZ camera models able to meet the needs of various clinical environments.”

Below is the interview with James Liao from AVer.

How does the AVer Medical Grade Camera benefit medical practice?

James:

AVer MD330U Series is a true revolution in Telemedicine technology. The camera design means that an off-site doctor can remotely control the motorized PTZ function as standard. Onsite staff can assist in viewing difficult-to-see areas simply by detaching the camera and positioning it closer to the relevant part of the body. The MD330U Series is equipped with an all-in-one audio system that makes communication smooth and seamless. Also the MD330UI with night view function can be used to monitor patients 24/7, saving time and resources and lessening nurse burnout.

With AVer’s medical grade cameras, nurses don’t constantly need to wear isolation gowns to enter ICU wards in order to observe patients on an hourly basis. This freedom allows them to make better use of their time attending to other duties. For doctors, the MD330U Series can provide them with clear images. Not only can they give correct instructions remotely, but they can also help other doctors to fill in during emergencies and during surgery. Thus patients can enjoy a higher standard of medical care.

In addition to these points, our solutions play an important role in connecting families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, a pregnant woman who was infected with COVID-19 was being treated in isolation in the ICU. Her situation took a turn for the worse, but her family members were in quarantine and unable to visit her. They wanted to say goodbye to each other, so a nurse thought of an idea to link them all. They were able to communicate remotely using AVer’s PTZ cameras and software. During the dark days of the pandemic, AVer tried its best to help make patients feel less isolated by connecting them to their families.

What does the future hold for the digital health industry?

James:

There will be more AI and automated functions developed by startups and established companies alike. The goal is increasing work efficiency for doctors and nurses, helping them to reduce their burden. Medical professionals should be able to focus on their tasks and not have to spend unnecessary time on paperwork or walking from room to room. The pandemic prompted medical professionals and technological advances to work and grow together, ushering in a new era of telehealth.

What does the future hold for the digital health industry?

James:

There will be more AI and automated functions developed by startups and established companies alike. The goal is increasing work efficiency for doctors and nurses, helping them to reduce their burden. Medical professionals should be able to focus on their tasks and not have to spend unnecessary time on paperwork or walking from room to room. The pandemic prompted medical professionals and technological advances to work and grow together, ushering in a new era of telehealth.

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