Telemedicine may be still in its formative, pioneer stage, but new applications for the resource-efficient medical and healthcare alternative continue to spring up. We’ve written about telemedicine’s rapid growth fields as diverse as addiction recovery support, hip replacement physical therapy, and store-and-forward teledermatology. Nearly any medical service that entails travel, multiple visits, and, particularly, medical specialty consults is fodder for careful study under the lens of telemedicine.
Penn Medicine’s Brain Tumor Center is one of the country’s most prominent facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors. It recently launched a telemedicine second opinion program for brain tumors. According to Steven Brem, MD, the Brain Tumor Center co-director and director of Neurosurgical Oncology, “Receiving a brain tumor diagnosis is a life-changing event, and it can be particularly difficult when facing multiple treatment choices.” In the telemedicine second opinion program, Penn neurosurgeons work with patient’s local medical professionals to review images, patient history, diagnosis, and treatment plan.
Penn Med’s Brain Tumor Center second opinion telemedicine program provides access to some of the country’s top brain tumor resources without the necessity and expense of traveling to the center. Initial phases of the brain tumor second opinion program will provide support for patients in Florida Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The current plan is to expand the program further in 2020.
