Telemedicine Improves Teletraining

Telemedicine isn't just for treating patients without local access to specialized care.

It turns out the video and data links between major hospitals and rural health-care facilities also can be used to deliver highly specialized training to medical professionals, according to a report released last week by the Kansas-based Midwest Cancer Alliance.

Since 2008, 174 nurses from seven Kansas communities have become certified in chemotherapy biotherapy after taking training courses via interactive telemedicine links, according to an account of the report in OncologyNurseAdvisor.com. The training is delivered twice a year by the alliance, the University of Kansas Cancer Center and the University of Kansas Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth, OncologyNurseAdvisor reports. Recipients of the training are nurses with less than two years of experience in oncology.

Although oncology nurses said they would prefer to receive training in person, the alliance plans to expand its use of interactive telemedicine training based on the program’s success, the researchers said, according to the website’s report.

The alliance presented its research at the Oncology Nursing Society’s 37th Annual Congress in New Orleans.