Telemedicine refers to the delivery and provision of health care and consultative services to individual patients and the transmission of information related to care, over distance, using telecommunications technologies.Quality of service is a critical determinant of telemedicine performance. In addition, it can also be a critical factor in determining long-term viability of a telemedicine serv...

Objectives: Neuro-critical Intensive Care Units (NICUs) have functioned to deliver intensive medical care services for patients with acute neurology problems. However, physicians and ICU staff do not have any feedback about their patients and their abilities after successful discharge. Various studies have documented short-term survival in ICUs, but the long-term outcome and quality of life (...

From the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (D.C.M., M.K.G.), the Department of Health Research and Policy (M.K.G.), and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (M.K.G.), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.; and the Health Services Research and Development Service and Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, P...

From the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (D.C.M., M.K.G.), the Department of Health Research and Policy (M.K.G.), and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (M.K.G.), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.; and the Health Services Research and Development Service and Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, P...

Telemedicine was recognized in the 1970s as a legitimate entity for applying the use of modern information and communications technologies to the delivery of health services. Telecardiology is one of the fastest growing fields in telemedicine. The advancement of technologies and Web-based applications has allowed better transmission of health care delivery. This article discusses current advanc...

background: the need to provide high quality prenatal care services, which take account of women's views and specifi­cally address their need for information, support and communication, has been advocated and group prenatal care, had been sug­gested as one of the ways to achieve this objective. the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of group versus in­dividual prenatal care on sati...

APPROXIMATELY 10% TO 20% of patients recovering from critical illness experience persistent organ failures necessitating complex care for a prolonged period of time. Traditionally these patients spent their entire acute care episode in a general medical-surgical hospital. However, in recent years longterm acute care hospitals have emerged as a novel care model for patients recovering from sever...