Southwest Telehealth Resource Center Blog

Are you thinking about moving data (e.g., patient files, images, telemedicine survey data) from that clunky old Yugo computer or storage system to a brand new shiny Ferrari system? Are those happy thoughts or are they clouded by dread and visions of digital monsters eating up all your data and laughing in your face? You are not alone.

Data migration can be painful but there are ways to lessen that pain with careful preparation. First let’s start with a few basic terms. Legacy data is what you have now and want to transfer. Data migration is the process of importing that data into the new system. Data cleansing is getting the old data ready to move – making it compatible with what the new system requires or expects. It’s this last part that is often the most difficult.

When dealing with the challenges of bringing quality medical care to rural communities, the obstacles are twofold: lack of available resources and the high cost to administer care in rural environments. Combined with cuts to Medicare funding, the obstacles rural patients face begin to mount to unmanageable levels, and often force long-term care (LTC) facilities and Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) to send patients to emergency rooms for treatment if a specialist isn’t accessible in the immediate area within the required timeframe.

We all know how teleradiology has impacted the care of human patients for the past 15 years or so and driven the field of telemedicine to the advanced state it is now, but what about our animal friends who get sick and need care when they live out in rural areas?

Not surprisingly (or maybe for some it is) telemedicine is a rapidly growing part of veterinary medicine, and as with human medicine, radiology is leading the way.

The need for genetic counselors is immense as there simply are not enough to cover the number of patients requiring their services.

Sound familiar? Can you think of a solution? Telegenetics of course!

But as we all know, you can’t just jump into telemedicine without some degree of training. That’s where the Western States Genetic Services Collaborative (WSGSC) comes into play.

Medical offices typically cluster doctors’ offices into a multi-tenant medical malls. Similar to retail malls that offer a myriad of shops, medical malls cluster doctors of different specialties under one roof. Such an arrangement offers shared resources (common areas) for practitioners and convenience for the consumer. Although the size of a medical office varies somewhat based on specialty, the required square footage is typically based on space needed for waiting rooms, clinic space and common areas.