The impact of telemedicine in the postoperative care of the neurosurgery patient in an outpatient clinic: a unique perspective of this valuable resource in the developing world--an experience of more than...
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2014-09-30
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Abstract
Telemedicine has always been used as a teleconsultation tool in neurological emergencies e g triage in head injuries stroke and cerebrovascular accidents At Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences Bangalore India we have been operating two teleconsultation sessions per week for the postoperative patient population addressing routine follow up and semiemergent conditions in this cohort of patients At our center more than 80 of the neurosurgical procedures are conducted in patients traveling more than 1500 km Telemedicine as a routine tool in clinical medicine has significant financial and psychosocial benefits versus routine outpatient clinics There are very few reports of telemedicine use in routine outpatient teleconsultations in the available neurosurgical literature those that are present do not differentiate or analyze the use in routine versus emergency neurosurgery We discuss the role of this underused resource in the developing countries and retrospectively analyze the clinical data in more than 1500 patients and 3000 teleconsultations during a period of 6 years We address the financial implications psychosocial factors and several other factors that could make this relatively modest technology an indispensible tool in current neurosurgical practice especially in a developing country like India