I ran across two articles that highlight two aspects of telelhealth in Minnesota; each has a very different perspective – but together they give both the industry and consumer views of the advantages broadband technology brings to healthcare.
Home and Community Options in Winona Daily News
It isn’t that often that I get to read heartwarming articles about broadband – but today I did. Stewart Shaw, a Community Columnist from the Winona Daily News, wrote a great article about Home and Community Options, which provides support and residential services to people with developmental disabilities in order to enable individuals to live as full members of their communities.
Shaw paints a picture of what technology of a remote monitoring can mean to the residents and staff supporting independent living. He credits a grant from Blandin Foundation and in-kind grant from Hiawatha Broadband Communications. (I want to point out that this is the Blandin on Broadband blog – in fact we have a blogger from the HCO.) The article makes me realize that everyone’s “killer app” is different.
Mayo Clinic & Medical Imaging in FoxBusiness
I also read about the Mayo Clinic and IBM are building a Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center (MI3C) in Rochester Minnesota. At the heart of the MI3C will be the latest in high-end imaging platforms and computational hardware, including IBM’s breakthrough computing system based on the Cell Broadband Engine and blade technology.
I won’t pretend to truly understand all of the projects that they are planning for the Center – but it seems as if, not surprisingly, they all revolve around improving the quality of pictures they can take of organs, tumors, and the swallowing process to help them diagnose and track parents’ symptoms.
