Application of Telemedicine in a Pain Clinic: The Changing Face of Medical Practice

Abstract

Telemedicine systems aim to provide quality health care services to persons whose access is otherwise restricted by geography and environment. The military medical department has a unique mission to provide all medical care for the battlefields and peacekeeping missions anywhere in the world. In addition, the medical department has to ensure the health of all soldiers, family members, and retirees during peacetime. Hospital closures coupled with a decreased number of military physicians have left many health care beneficiaries without readily available specialty care. They face long waiting lists or incur high out-of-pocket expenses in order to see medical specialists. As a result of the establishment of a virtual Telepain clinic, 56,400 miles were saved in patient and clinician travel. Use of technologies in the emerging field of telemedicine has lead to the creation of numerous military and civilian medical applications such as virtual dermatology, virtual psychiatry, virtual cardiology, virtual nuclear medicine/radiology, virtual pharmacology, and in future, virtual dentistry and ophthalmology.

Calling All Pain Patients: Telehealth Has Arrived

“…2 Other studies not referenced in this review include videoconferencing for delivering mindfulnessbased meditation for chronic pain 3 and for the management of chronic pain in veterans; 4 a telemedicine exercise-based program for older adults with knee pain; 5 a myofeedback-based teletreatment service in patients with nonspecific neck and shoulder pain; 6 and a military telemedicine pain clinic. 7 These additional studies further support the authors' conclusions regarding the growing potential of telehealth for pain management.…”

“…One of the omitted studies was a large randomized trial of telecare management for pain and/or depression in 405 patients enrolled from 16 community‐based oncology practices that showed superior outcomes for the telecare group compared with usual care 2 . Other studies not referenced in this review include videoconferencing for delivering mindfulness‐based meditation for chronic pain 3 and for the management of chronic pain in veterans; 4 a telemedicine exercise–based program for older adults with knee pain; 5 a myofeedback‐based teletreatment service in patients with nonspecific neck and shoulder pain; 6 and a military telemedicine pain clinic 7 . These additional studies further support the authors’ conclusions regarding the growing potential of telehealth for pain management.…”

Telemedicine and anaesthesia

“…The patient is given a device that needs to be connected to an ordinary telephone line and during the consultation this device transmits the ECG and other relevant clinical parameters for analysis. [22]…”

Self-Regulation Training for Chronic Pain: Can It Be Done Effectively by Telemedicine?

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] However, there have been no controlled clinical trials in the area of behavioral medicine for pain management.…”