Maine leads nation in telehealth services

ROCKPORT – Telemedicine is reaching epidemic proportions in Maine.

In fact, people attending a statewide conference on the subject Wednesday learned that Maine has become the largest provider of telemedicine services among the 50 states.

Dr. Arvind Patel, medical director of Lubec-based Maine Telemedicine Services, said almost 200 sites across the state are using the technology, and it’s growing by two to four sites a month.

Telemedicine is essentially the transfer of electronic medical data from one location to another. Sometimes it involves high-resolution images and sound, sometimes live video or sometimes patient records. By moving information rather than patients, it is far less expensive than traditional medicine, which requires patients to go to the provider.

A new term – telehealth – was used at Wednesday’s conference at the Samoset Resort. Telehealth covers the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, health-related education, and administration.

Joseph Ternullo, associate director of a Boston-based provider of telemedicine services, said that early perceptions of telemedicine were that it was “weird, odd, ‘Jetsons,’ ‘Star Wars’-type stuff.”

Now “you’re beginning to see a train leave the station,” he said. “The industry is starting to move.”

Dr. Burgess Record of Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington pointed out Wednesday that Maine was a pioneer in the telemedicine field. In the 1970s, his hospital was working with other rural facilities by way of a transmission tower atop Mount Blue, he said.

“Eventually, I think the word ‘telemedicine’ will disappear,” Ternullo said. “It will just be ‘medicine.'”

Most of the attendees at the conference had worked in telemedicine for less than two years; some for two to five years; and only a few had more than five years in the field.

“Telemedicine is not just robotic surgery and sexy stuff,” Ternullo said, noting that the Department of Veterans Affairs performs 100,000 consultations a year by telemedicine.

“Clinical results have been consistently good and accurate,” he added.

In Maine, Maine Telemedicine Services manages other networks, which are providing interactive videoconferencing at such places as hospitals, health centers, and mental health and social service agencies, as well as nursing homes, community action programs, day care centers, and government and other agencies.

The famed 71-foot ship the Sunbeam provides mobile telemedicine equipment to serve Maine’s islands once every two weeks. For example, it connects a patient on Matinicus, which is 25 miles off Rockland, with a physician.

The new Maine State Prison in Warren also is a telemedicine customer. The service allows prisoners to be examined or consulted without leaving the facility. Other prisons across the state are using the service, too.

Telemedicine services available in Maine deal with endocrinology and nutrition, psychiatry, geriatrics, genetic counseling, home nursing and mental health, discharge planning, counseling, and primary care for island inhabitants and the Department of Corrections.

Some programs under development are cardiology, dermatology, pediatric diabetes, urology and hearing interpretive services.

The Pine Tree Society for Handicapped Children and Adults offers American Sign Language hearing interpretive services, which greatly reduces patient waiting time and travel time for the interpreter, project coordinator Lois Morin said.

The most widely used telemedicine service in Maine is in psychiatry, according to Patel.

Maine is well-positioned for more telemedicine, he said. As a leader in the field, the state should be able to capture grants to expand in areas of home care, collaboration across state lines and to attract government and private industry sponsors and philanthropic donations, Ternullo said.

“Telemedicine is here to stay,” he said. “It’s going to be part of everyday life.”