Icons on the screen tell patients what to do. If they misunderstand or the instructions are too fast, a video clip explains it again and repeats until the patients get it. It works through cable lines retooled to send messages two ways instead of one, which is how television shows are sent to sets. Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta designed it and now hope to cut the cost by using a television instead of a touchable screen, said Michael Burrow, a senior research engineer at Georgia Tech. Television might work because one day, engineers envision Americans will shop, bank, order pizza and watch movies from one TV system - just like those commercials promise.
Senior citizens are just the beginning.
Stachura says it could eventually work for new mothers of premature babies and patients who need reminders to take medicine. But there's a lot of work ahead. Besides making it cheaper, engineers want to fiddle with a few of the machine functions, slow down the video's voice and make the system adapt to different patient's problems. There are drawbacks. Most telemedicine projects aren't covered by Medicare and only a handful of private insurers cover it.