Telemedicine Case

Case Synopsis
Telemedicine is the transferring of medical information through electronic communication from one location to another location in that it enhances the quality and efficiency related to the patient comfort and care. Telemedicine links doctors (specialists) that are at one hospital to the doctors treating the patient that is located at a different hospital through technology like video-conferencing. This case is about how successful telemedicine has been in treating stroke patients (TeleStroke) and questioning how successful or necessary telemedicine could be in other areas of medicine, such as pediatrics. TeleStroke started in 2000 at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston with Lee Schwann, M.D., the Director of Acute
Telemedicine has come a long way since it started as there were a few obstacles to overcome. One such obstacle was how patients would be reimbursed as this service was not covered under the insurance policies. Another obstacle this program had to overcome was the licensing of the doctors as the doctors are licensed in the United States on a state-by-state basis. The hospitals located in small communities had problems with their network architectures and extensive interoperability issues that needed to be addressed and fixed. In order for these smaller hospitals to take part of telemedicine, they needed to update and upgrade their IT infrastructure. In 1994, Partners HealthCare was formed when MGH and Brigham & Women’s Hospital merged and soon after, many other hospitals joined Partners HealthCare or they developed affiliations with Partners. Martha’s Vineyard Hospital (MVH) is affiliated with Partners and in 2000, Dr. Schwamm was helping the emergency physicians in using telemedicine. The third leading cause of death in the U.S. was strokes, with around 795,000 cases with 140,000 deaths. Around 15 million
The five forces are used “to help organizations determine the potential profitability of an industry” (Kroenke, 2013). Porter’s five forces has also been used as a way of understanding organizations’ competitive environments. Once an organization understands their competitive environments, a competitive strategy is formulated. The value chain is divided into primary activities and supporting activities. The primary activities consist of business functions that relate to the production and organization’s products or services, which include inbound logistics, operations/manufacturing, outbound logistics, sales and marketing, and finally customer service. The supporting activities consist of business activities that assist and facilitate the primary activities, which includes procurement, human resources, technological development, and finally the infrastructure. The value chain model identifies the major practices the company offers relating to the inner and outer business practices. If value has not been enhanced, then the company can look back at the value chain and see where it is