Webcam Savvy for Telemedicine (Second Edition)

By Clarence Jones

Telemedicine is a rapidly expanding technology to deliver exams and treatment to patients in remote areas of the world who have no other way to receive medical care. The doctor or nurse can have a conversation with the patient through software similar to Skype or Face Time, in real time. Today's technology is truly astounding. The practice of Telemedicine is about to explode in the United States and other developed areas, as well. This book shows doctors, nurses and patients how to use webcams so the experience closely parallels an in-person visit to a clinic or a doctor's office. Telemedicine's primary advantages are cost and convenience. There is no need for an appointment, no need for transportation, no delay in diagnosis and treatment. Once they’re comfortable with it, patients tend to check in more frequently and ask more questions. Doctors and nurses can do a better job of follow-up care with Telemedicine. And it can sharply reduce the cost and patient overload in hospital emergency rooms. Author Clarence Jones is a former prize-winning TV reporter who currently has six other books in print. He is a master story teller and teacher.
The equipment and software is already in place, just waiting for this book. Your next medical exam may be a visit WITH the doctor, rather than a visit TO the doctor's office or clinic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clarence Jones
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370363124

Clarence Jones

Clarence Jones is an on-camera coach who teaches media survival skills. He knows what he's talking about. After 30 years of reporting in both newspapers and television, he wrote Winning with the News Media - A Self-Defense Manual When You're the Story. Now in its 9th Edition, many call it "the bible" on news media relations. Then he formed his own media relations firm to (in his words) "teach people like you how to cope with SOBs like me." At WPLG-TV in Miami, he was one of the nation's most-honored reporters. He won four Emmys and became the first reporter for a local station to ever win three duPont-Columbia Awards - TV's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his day job as a news media consultant, he writes more books and magazine articles. He builds his own computers and invents clever devices to for his sailboat. Nine of his books are now available in both print and e-book formats -- Winning with the News Media, They're Gonna Murder You (his memoirs), Sweetheart Scams - Online Dating's Billion Dollar Swindle, LED Basics - Choosing and Using the Magic Light, Sailboat Projects, More Sailboat Projects, Webcam Savvy for the Job or the News, Webcam Savvy for Telemedicine, and Filming Family History. Clarence started working full-time as a daily newspaper reporter while he was earning his journalism degree at the University of Florida. He was named Capitol correspondent in Tallahassee for the Florida Times-Union one year after graduating from college. Six years later, as one of the nation's most promising young journalists, he was granted a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. After Harvard, he was hired by the Miami Herald, where he was part of a year-long investigation that resulted in corruption charges against the sheriff and his top aides. The Herald stories led to a referendum that abolished the office of sheriff. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida with an appointed public safety director. Clarence covered Martin Luther King's Civil Rights campaign all across the South for the Herald. His last newspaper position was Washington correspondent for the Herald. He then moved to Louisville, Kentucky to work under deep cover for eight months, investigating political and law enforcement corruption for WHAS-TV. Posing as a gambler, he visited illegal bookie joints daily, carrying a hidden camera and tape recorder. His documentaries during a two-year stint in Louisville gained immediate national attention. He returned to Miami in 1972 to become the investigative reporter for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate owned by Post-Newsweek Corp. Specializing in organized crime and law enforcement corruption, his work at WPLG earned four Emmys and three duPont-Columbia Awards (television's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize). He also won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for "The Billion-Dollar Ghetto," a 10-story series that examined the causes of the riots that burned much of Liberty City and killed 18 people in 1980. While he was reporting, he taught broadcast journalism for five years as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami. He lives near the mouth of Tampa Bay, where he sails a 28-foot Catalina, and frequently publishes magazine articles showing how to make gadgets and accessories he invents for his boat. All of his books are available in both print and e-book versions.

Book preview

Webcam Savvy

For

Telemedicine

By

Clarence Jones

e-book version

Second Edition

(also available in paperback)

Copyright© 2020 by Clarence Jones. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portion thereof, in any form, without written permission from the author. Registered trademarks carry the ® symbol on first use in this book. On subsequent use, the trademark symbol is assumed.

Table of Contents

What is Telemedicine, Anyhow?

Practice, Practice, Practice

The Technical Stuff

Buying Your Webcam

Installing Your Webcam

Webcam Placement

Lighting & Background

On Camera Skills for Doctors and Nurses

Be the Doctor On Call

News Media Interviews

Creating Sound Bites

On-Camera Skills for Patients

Telemedicine Resources

Telemedicine Tools

Build a Backdrop Frame

About the Author

Contact Us

e-book Issues

What is Telemedicine, Anyhow?

This shot is taken from a real Skype® interview aired by a TV network several years ago. On a large TV screen, it’s even worse than it appears here.

Nothing in the video is in focus. The network logo, the time, and temperature in the lower right are sharp, but they were superimposed over the image.It appears to have been shot with a laptop webcam in a motel room. Awful. Truly awful.

So bad, viewers probably didn’t hear a word this guy spoke. The Gettysburg address would have been overwhelmed by the miserable setup.

Times Have Changed

This kind of setup is one reason doctors and nurses shy away from Telemedicine. But times have changed. The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 forced doctors everywhere to give it a try. Having patients with the disease sit in their waiting rooms with others they could infect was just not acceptable.

Today’s equipment is astounding, in both high quality and low price. It will truly revolutionize medicine. I’ll show you what it can do. And how to use it.

A Simple Definition

The simplest definition of Telemedicine is:

The two-way transmission of medical information from one person to another – especially the examination of a patient by a doctor or nurse, connected electronically (usually through the Internet) in real time.

Telehealth is Different

Those new to this idea sometimes confuse Telemedicine with Telehealth. Telehealth is much broader, and means using electronics to transmit information about ANYTHING connected to the practice of medicine. It may be only one-way.

So Telemedicine is more than just the DELIVERY of medical information. Medical information has been delivered for centuries. Usually by mail. Sometimes by hand. By courier, or by the patient. From the lab to the doctor. From one doctor to another.

Telemedicine involves two-way communication, using technology, to transmit medical information in a back-and-forth exchange. It can be a simple conference phone call between a doctor, nurse, technician and/or patient. Or a full-fledged visit with both audio and video.

Telemedicine’s Advantages

▪ Convenience and lower cost are the two biggest advantages for Telemedicine.

▪ You can connect at any time, just about any place in the world. Distance is no longer a factor.

▪ There is no need for appointments made days or weeks in advance; no need for transportation, no delay in diagnosis and treatment (although you DO have to schedule the time for the webcam call).

▪ Once they’re comfortable with it, patients tend to check in more frequently and ask more questions.

▪ This frequent follow-up care means doctors and nurses can do a better job with Telemedicine.

▪ Telemedicine can sharply reduce the cost and patient overload in hospital emergency rooms.

Emergency Room Overloads

About half the people who go to emergency rooms are not having an emergency. Most don’t even need urgent medical attention. But federal law says the ER can’t refuse to see and treat them. Even if they can’t pay for a doctor to deal with their headache or indigestion.

Resistance to Telemedicine

Yet among doctors, there is a lot of resistance to the Telemedicine idea. Let’s see if we can figure out why.

In the 1800s, surely telegraph wires must have transmitted some medical information. But if they did, it was rare.

In the early 1900s, newspapers developed ways to transmit photographs. First, by telephone lines, then with radio signals. But the technology was not considered good enough to transmit medical information with life and death significance.

Telephone Calls & Fax Machines

Then doctors began to talk to their patients – and to each other – by telephone. Was that Telemedicine? Yes.

Once they were perfected in the 1960s, fax machines were regularly used to send medical records. Telemedicine? Yes, But only IF the recipient and the sender conferred. If not, a fax transmitted with no expected response falls in the Telehealth category.

We have reached the point now where X-rays are routinely sent to radiologists halfway around the world to detect and diagnose terminal diseases. The quality of the X-ray at the receiving end is identical to the quality of the original. The radiologist who reads the X-ray in Australia can immediately give his opinion to the New York doctor who sent it.

Medical Care for Remote Areas

Until telemedicine becomes the normal way for office visits, the largest single benefit provided by Telemedicine today is probably medical attention for those in remote areas who simply cannot get to a doctor or medical clinic.

This is the case in many developing, sparsely populated countries with very few doctors and medical facilities. Some are island nations. In others, the terrain is so mountainous, travel to a doctor or medical facility can take days.

Telemedicine now offers consultation with specialists for rural areas in the United States, where there are only family doctors. Or maybe NO local doctors. Most Americans are unaware of Telemedicine because they have such easy access to highly sophisticated, in-person medical care.

Why Doctors are Reluctant

Why are doctors so reluctant to try Telemedicine?

▪ Because this is new. Any major change in medicine is extremely difficult to accomplish. It takes a while.

▪ Doctors are not sure they will be paid. But Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance systems have now worked out ways to guarantee they’ll get their fees.

▪ Doctors are afraid their diagnosis by telemetry will miss something they’d catch if they examined the patient in person. They might be sued for malpractice, or lose their license.

▪ Most doctors have not seen the astounding quality of audio and video now available. If there’s any doubt after a Telemedicine visit, they can always be extra-cautious and ask the patient to come in for an old-fashioned, in-person exam.

▪ Some state laws do not yet recognize Telemedicine, and some doctors in those states are waiting for the laws to change.

There are so many companies moving into Telemedicine, clever solutions to deal with it are multiplying exponentially.

This Book Can’t Keep Up

The move to Telemedicine is so massive, any attempt in this book to explore the latest developments will be out of date next week. In April, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was breaking, Grandview Research in San Francisco released its study of the Telemedicine market.

The Global Telemedicine Market

The global market, Grandview Research said, totaled $41.4 billion in 2019, and would grow at least 15 per cent annually for the next few years. The report had to be edited at the last minute to add The sudden global outbreak of corona virus is expected to boost the usage of telemedicine.

Wow, what an understatement! This book is a stopgap effort designed to quickly provide:

▪ Telemedicine Resources – so you can find on the Internet what happened yesterday in Telemedicine or became the norm today.

▪ Telemedicine Tools – a chapter to show you some of the clever tools now available for examining patients online.

▪ How to Choose and Set Up a Webcam. You can do Telemedicine with very inexpensive equipment at both ends, then add more sophisticated gear if and when you think it would help. One of the biggest advantages for doctors and nurses is the ability to record their interaction with patients, so they can study your own style and polish it.

▪ Personal, On-camera Skills – If you talk to your webcam the way you talk to a patient in person, it probably won’t work. This strange, new setup may change your style in other ways. In the next chapter, I’ll tell you how I learned to change my style when I was new to television. I had to change my mindset. Telemedicine will require you to change your mindset, too.

▪ Patients Who Read This Book – will rejoice about how much easier it will be to see the doctor. They don’t have to change their clothes. No need for transportation, no long waits if the doctor is running late, and the visit can be recorded so they can review later anything they didn’t quite understand.

(Back to Table of Contents)

Practice, Practice, Practice

Please excuse the old saw:

TOURIST in New York asks a stranger on the sidewalk, How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

ANSWER: Practice, practice, practice.

Communicating effectively on camera (instead of in-person) also takes a lot of practice. Because something happens subconsciously when you’re on camera.

When I moved from newspapers to television, an old friend who worked in TV took me aside for some helpful advice:

When I see you on television, he said, You look like you’re making a speech to the Orange Bowl. That’s because you’re thinking of a million people out there in the audience.

Changing Your Mind-Set

The audience, he said, is only one or two people. They’re sitting eight or 10 feet away from the TV set, in their family room or kitchen. So as you speak, you have to imagine them, sitting there, very close, in that tiny space, as you