American Heart, Stroke associations call telemedicine as effective as real-life exams
Use of telemedicine to evaluate stroke patients has been endorsed by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association, which consider the method as effective as a bedside exam, according to a recently released AHA/ASA statement. Videoconference-based stroke treatment can also increase patient access to specialists in a field where only four neurologists exist per 100,000 people in the U.S., according to “A Review of the Evidence for the Use of Telemedicine Within Stroke Systems of Care.” Furthermore, not all neurologists specialize in stroke care, which makes telemedicine even more valuable, according to the AHA/ASA statement. “Telemedicine is an effective avenue to eliminate disparities in access to acute stroke care, erasing the inequities introduced by geography, income or social circumstance,” said statement lead author Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, who is associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. The AHA/ASA statement appears in the May 7, 2009 issue of the journal Stroke. http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/STROKEAHA....
