By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
A prototype home for quadriplegics is housed in the new statewide telemedicine network center in Iwilei. Halona Farden examines the prototype kitchen, which includes counters and shelves that go up and down, and a movable sink.
Telemedicine
system saves lives
A Maui businessman is golfing
Helen Altonn
once more thanks to a test
of the high tech link
Star-BulletinMaui businessman Masaru "Pundy" Yokouchi is back golfing because of a lucky link between Maui Memorial Hospital and Queen's Medical Center. He laughs, acknowledging: "My score is still high." He knows, however, that he might not be golfing at all if not for a test of a new statewide telemedicine system.
The Weinberg Telemedicine Network, expected to improve medical care throughout the state, was launched today by Gov. Ben Cayetano and Alvin Awaya, trustee of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
The foundation is promoting telemedicine with a $10 million grant, including $3.2 million for the state Hawaii Health Systems Corp., encompassing the state's 12 hospitals.
The foundation intends to support telemedicine installations at 50 nonprofit public and private medical facilities statewide within two years, each with $200,000 grants, a spokesman said.
Cayetano said every hospital eventually will be able to transfer and receive medical images and information for diagnosis, analysis, consultation, education and training.
He said Hawaii is one of the first states to use telemedicine on such a comprehensive scale because of its "world-class telecommunications infrastructure" and partnership with the Weinberg Foundation, GTE Hawaiian Tel, GST Hawaii and Oceanic Communications.
Yokouchi was in the right place at the right time to be the first patient to benefit.
"Pundy had angels looking out for him," said Joe Blanco, executive assistant to the governor.
Yokouchi said he went to Maui Memorial Nov. 30 because his stomach and back were aching. "They thought probably my ulcers were acting up but they couldn't find anything."
On Dec. 3, Drs. Mark Schwab and Paul Wells gave him a treadmill test and detected something wrong with his heartbeat, he said.
Yokouchi referred Schwab to Dr. Raymond Itagaki at the Queen's Medical Center because Itagaki had checked him out once before.
Itagaki happened to be working with Schwab on the telemedicine project. And the network happened to be running at 2 a.m. Dec. 4 for a teleconference.
GTE Hawaiian Tel engineers had just finished a critical link a week earlier than expected to prepare for a demonstration.
Itagaki told the Maui doctors Yokouchi needed an angiogram - normally sent to Honolulu for diagnosis by specialists and taking three days.
With the telemedicine network, a digital angiogram image was uploaded immediately to Itagaki, who diagnosed a critical heart condition.
"That's the beauty about this telecommunications system," Yokouchi said, "where a doctor on Maui was doing it (the angiogram) and the doctor in Honolulu, who is a specialist, is viewing it, so they can confer with each other."
Yokouchi was sent immediately by air ambulance to Honolulu and underwent an angioplasty procedure.
"It was very, very close," he said. "Three arteries were blocked and one was really bad (98 percent blocked)."
He said Itagaki "busted three balloons" until getting the fourth one through the artery.
Back home about a week later, Yokouchi called Itagaki with a vital question: "'When can I golf?' He said, 'As soon as you can pick up a club.'"
The new system is expected to chop time to transport medical data between the neighbor islands and Oahu from three days to three minutes.
"Transporting images instead of people saves time, money and human life," said Cayetano, citing Yokouchi as "living proof."
Participating medical facilities
eventually will be able to go online to consult with Mayo Clinic, Sloan Kettering and other mainland hospitals, officials said.
"It will be like a fax machine," one said. "If you have the equipment in your hospital, you can touch a button and be online."
Cayetano said he's taking steps to obtain millions in federal funds available for rural telecommunication projects; to support a special telemedicine rate before the Public utilities Commission and propose legislation leading to medical reimbursements for telemedicine cases.
Cayetano also sees telemedicine improving disease management, providing teleconsultations and distance learning via teleconferencing.
He said the network "brings Hawaii a big step closer to becoming the premier health center of the Pacific."
Old warehouse home
By Helen Altonn
for support network
Star-BulletinA remodeled old warehouse at 418 Kuwii St. in Iwilei is full of high-tech surprises. They range from a specially designed one-bedroom apartment for quadriplegics to a 25-meter pool for disabled swimmers.
It's the first facility of its kind anywhere, said a representative of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, owner of the warehouse.
Hawaii's new statewide telemedicine network has a home there.
So do more than a dozen nonprofit agencies that formerly operated in congested, shabby quarters.
The foundation transformed the warehouse to help nonprofit agencies be more efficient.
Now they're sharing resources, cutting costs and providing more and better services, they report.
The spacious, newly decorated warehouse has:
A Video Medical Telecommunications Center and video teleconferencing rooms.
A new satellite link has been established to teach public health courses from the University of Hawaii and Maui Community College, to the LBJ Tropical Medicine Center in American Samoa. Satellite link from isles
aids American SamoaU.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Larry Irving inaugurated the link, which also can be used for telemedicine, over the weekend. It would allow doctors in Honolulu to read diagnostic X-rays of patients in American Samoa without patients having to travel here.
