New Type Of Virtual Medical Practice Helps Katrina Victims

By Denise Dador, KABC Los Angeles

In emergency situations, doctors in the field need to make immediate decisions, but some calls are tough to make without a specialist on hand. Many Hurricane Katrina victims are receiving expert medical help thanks to a new type of virtual practice.

Medical volunteers from across the country are treating the victims of Hurricane Katrina in makeshift hospitals and shelters across the gulf coast. Getting the right medical diagnosis and treatment is very difficult under these conditions, but that's where medical video-conferencing comes in. Using state of the art cameras and communications equipment both sides can see and hear each other.

"Over the last few years, we realized that this has a potential to provide expertise at points where there's a need for medical expertise urgently," said Dr. Thomas Nesbit/UC Davis Telemedicine Founder.

Dr. Thomas Nesbit was the first to establish a TeleMedicine system in California. Although his staff at UC Davis has never used TeleMedicine for a wide scale disaster, the National Institute of Health has called on them to be ready at a moment's notice.

"It will help in the level of quality of care that the patient receives because they have not only the doctors at that location, but they'll have the specialist expert opinion over telemedicine," Dr. James Marcin/Pediatrician.

Right now, the University Of Texas Medical Center is using Telemedicine to help with evacuees at a Galveston Texas shelter. The University Of Texas is staff is setting up telemedicine conferencing on the Carnival Cruise Ships, which is awaiting the arrival of evacuees from the Astrodome.

Telemedicine equipment is portable and can be set up in fifteen minutes.

Sometimes, the doctor needs to see something tiny or inside a patient. There's even smaller equipment for that.

"We can look at the type of burn, or the injury or the type of fracture and know whether or not it needs to be transported immediately or it can wait," Dr. Marcin.

The Tele-Health Program at UC Davis was established in 1996. The center partners with hospitals and clinics throughout California to give patients and doctors access to specialized medicine.

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