GE Healthcare has partnered with InTouch Health, a provider of FDA-cleared remote presence devices, to help train imaging techs and radiologists to use high-tech imaging devices. It’s an innovative use of telehealth technology that reduces the costs associated with onsite follow-up training, and in a recent pilot, was shown to improve training quality, potentially saving lives.
The pilot connected GE experts to healthcare providers in over 200 telepresence classes around the world, successfully training more than 300 medical professionals in the proper use of GE equipment and best practices. The program demonstrated that using telehealth was more convenient and more effective than traditional training alone. InTouch Health’s Virtual Onsite Training device replicates face-to-face training through an attached video monitor and robotics for two-way communication and interaction.
“GE Healthcare provides technology to providers and patients around the world. The users who operate those devices are as impactful, if not more so, on the actual efficiency and patient outcomes as the product itself. Therefore, GE has made it a global priority to re-imagine its training and education solutions to help users achieve and maintain optimal skills and product usage. Our collaboration with InTouch Health enables network connectivity, hands on interaction, and an intuitive user experience for their online mobile remote presence training which will be foundational to reaching this goal,” said Mario Lois, General Manager, GE Healthcare Global Education Services.
The InTouch Health telehealth network is a single unified cloud infrastructure that includes data centers around the globe, covering the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The network provides a regulatory (HIPAA) compliant, secure, scalable, and always available network hosting FDA Class II and Class I medical devices. The network architecture allows for the delivery of business intelligence and data analytics gathered from all data traffic managed on any connected device. This is the same network used by GE to deliver their customer on-demand Virtual Onsite Training.
About InTouch Health
InTouch Health provides its FDA-cleared InTouch Telehealth Network and Managed Services to hospitals and healthcare systems for the delivery of specialty care, anytime, anywhere. InTouch Health has helped more than 130 healthcare systems deploy telehealth programs across their enterprise quickly and seamlessly using its industry-leading combination of people, processes, and technology. InTouch Health has surpassed 800,000 potentially life-saving telehealth sessions over the InTouch Telehealth Cloud and now manages more than 200,000 clinical connections annually for over 1,500 hospital locations globally. For more information, please visit www.intouchhealth.com.