Portland, Oregon (NAPSI) - These days, there’s more to medicine than meets the eye. It’s true, physicians rely heavily on what they can see to diagnose and treat the patients in their care. From inspecting a wound, to studying X-ray imagery, to watching someone react to different stimuli in a physical examination, doctors use visual examinations as a critical component in understanding the state of a patient’s health.
New On The Medicine Scene
Today, however, physicians also rely on being able to communicate and exchange visual information, even when a patient or a colleague isn’t physically present. High-speed broadband and Ethernet-based networks support easy sharing of large medical image files and videoconferencing for remote health care visits and virtual collaboration. As in so many industries, broadband has been transformative in health care. Visual media—high-resolution imagery and video—have become fundamental tools in the evolving medical field.
In the U.S., cable companies are the primary source of residential high-speed broadband connections and, after delivering TV for more than half a century, cable operators are also experts in delivering video. This expertise extends not only to homes across the country but to businesses, including health care facilities nationwide.
Consider These Examples
Charter Communications recently worked with Oregon Health Network to complete an 87-mile fiber network running from Grants Pass, Oregon to Crescent City, California. This broadband pipeline will let technicians send a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) X-ray from Oregon to Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City in less than a second.
A rural health clinic in Oklahoma uses cable services from Cox Communications to support videoconferencing with health specialists in Oklahoma City. A stroke victim was the first patient to benefit from the system.
Time Warner Cable delivers video offerings to health care facilities, including access to training and patient education, through its video-on-demand service, indicating that there’s growing need for health care-specific video delivery.
As the medical industry increasingly depends not only on broadband but on high-resolution imagery and video, cable companies are expected to become more important allies in patient care. The trend is likely to accelerate in the months and years ahead.
Learn More
For more information, visit the Healthcare section of www.cablemeansbusiness.com.
