After checking his blood pressure and pulse and warning him to eat, she gave Parks a thumbs up. The nurse vanished. This electronic housecall is being tested in this city 100 miles northwest of Savannah and home to the Medical College of Georgia, the center of the state's telemedicine efforts. More than 20 people, mostly senior citizens with chronic ills such as diabetes, received a computer monitor with its own stethoscope, thermometer, pulse monitor and blood pressure cuff. That paraphernalia sits on a tray, in place of a keyboard.
Patients just touch the screen to make it work.
Cable lines connect the computerized medical bag to the hospital, where a home-health nurse has her own monitor and keyboard. Cameras and speakers on both ends enable nurse and patient to see and talk to each other during the exam. Parks and his nurse turned it into comedy. Parks grumbled good-naturedly to the screen. Parks, who lives in a tiny room in a boardinghouse in a blighted part of town, also has heart problems and is unable to drive.