Telemedicine sees flurry of activity, expect to see more

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — It was a busy week for telemedicine-based news, particularly if you count health kiosks — DSN sure does.

(THE NEWS: Take Care Health Systems develops telehealth offering for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. For the full story, click here.)

On the heels of news that Take Care Health Systems has collaborated to make telehealth services available to thousands of BCBSNC employees located throughout North Carolina via a service called called OnlineCareNC, Solohealth and PharmaSmart also made headlines during the week with major announcements.



SoloHealth has unveiled plans to expand its FDA-approved SoloHealth Station health-and-wellness digital kiosks to more than 2,500 store locations by mid-2013, scaling to more than 4,000 by 2014. Meanwhile, PharmaSmart, which makes health kiosks, has announced its partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's “Team Up. Pressure Down.” program to promote blood pressure management among patients with hypertension.



What do all of these initiative have in common? Technology expands access and connects providers, and you can expect to see a lot more of these types of headlines in the months ahead.



As a patient, have you used telehealth services, and if so, what was your experience?