Sable C
Department of Cardiology, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC 20010, USA.
Crit Care Med. 2001 Aug;29(8 Suppl):N159-65. doi: 10.1097/00003246-200108001-00004.
Echocardiography is often used to diagnose and exclude important cardiac diagnoses in adults and children. Evolving telemedicine technology has the potential to improve access to echocardiography diagnoses in the intensive care unit, emergency room, and newborn nursery. The two primary modes of telemedicine practice are "store and forward" and "real-time" videoconferencing. A digital echocardiogram (often several one cardiac cycle loops) can be stored at one site and forwarded across a telemedicine network to a receiving station for review at a later time. Pediatric cardiologists often favor "real-time" telemedicine because of the ability to guide sonographers with limited experience in congenital heart disease. A complete telemedicine system requires a modified computer, a low- or high-speed connection, and telemedicine inputs. Several adult and pediatric clinical studies have shown telemedicine to be accurate and cost-effective, improve patient care, enhance echocardiogram quality and sonographer proficiency, and promote practice expansion. Obstacles to widespread implementation of telemedicine include lack of standardization of telemedicine components, confusing legal issues and licensure requirements, and poor reimbursement.
超声心动图常用于诊断和排除成人及儿童的重要心脏疾病。不断发展的远程医疗技术有潜力改善重症监护病房、急诊室和新生儿重症监护室中超声心动图诊断的可及性。远程医疗实践的两种主要模式是“存储转发”和“实时”视频会议。数字超声心动图（通常是几个心动周期的环路）可以存储在一个地点，并通过远程医疗网络转发到接收站供以后查看。儿科心脏病专家通常青睐“实时”远程医疗，因为其能够指导在先天性心脏病方面经验有限的超声检查人员。一个完整的远程医疗系统需要一台经过改装的计算机、低速或高速连接以及远程医疗输入设备。多项成人和儿科临床研究表明，远程医疗准确且具有成本效益，可改善患者护理、提高超声心动图质量和超声检查人员的专业水平，并促进业务拓展。远程医疗广泛实施的障碍包括远程医疗组件缺乏标准化、法律问题和许可要求令人困惑以及报销不佳。
