Invited talk for the Rural Alberta Management (RAM) Retreat - Lake Louise, April 30, 2012.

1. Rethinking the Role of
Work, Technology, and
Rural Healthcare
Rural Alberta Management (RAM)
Retreat 2012
Stella Lee
Blended Learning Leader,
Global Learning Team
Golder Associates, Inc., Canada

2. Today’s aims
• Discover new technologies, emerging trends, and good practices
• Learn about how technologies affects your work and life
• Explore opportunities to integrate that into your rural healthcare communities

3. Outline
• Introduction
• What is the future of work?
• eHealth trends
• Challenges and opportunities for rural healthcare
• Questions and discussions

4. “Future shock is the shattering stress and
disorientation that we induce in individuals by
subjecting them to too much change in too
short a time”
-Alvin Toffler

5. “The Future has already arrived. It
is just not evenly distributed yet”
-William Gibson

6. What is the future of work?

7. The future of work is:
• Collaborative
• Flat
• Competitive

8. Today, teams use web-based collaboration tools to
work together, anytime, anywhere
• Collaboration tool: Google Doc (https://docs.google.com)
• File sharing: Drop Box (http://www.dropbox.com)

12. The world is flat
• “By 'flat' I did not mean that the world is getting equal. I said that
more people in more places can now compete, connect and
collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before.
That's why an Indian in Bangalore can take care of the office work of
American doctors or read the X-rays of German hospitals.”
- Thomas Friedman

13. Flat-enabling tools
• VoIP tool: Skype (http://www.skype.com)
• Webniars: Adobe Connect (
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html)

14. source: http://www.liv.ac.uk/csd/adobeconnect/index.htm
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15. In 2004, JetBlue started a revolution,
allowing 700 customer service reps to
work from home with no central office.
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16. Lifelong learning/informal learning become more
important and readily available
• Open learning initiatives: Stanford AI class (https://www.ai-class.com/)
• Video-based tutorials: Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org)

19. eHealth trends

20. Technologies are being developed to support:
• Provider education/consultation
• Care delivery
• Communication and community building
• Remote diagnosis

21. SMS consultation
• Truth On Call - provide answers via
text messages
• Connects with physicians in the US
and UK
• Industry pays to ask the questions
and the physicians are paid for
their responses

22. source: http://www.truthoncall.com/

23. Mobile apps for education
• Blausen Human Atlas - apps for
iPhone and iPad
• Has library of 150 interactive 3D
animations, 1200 images and 1500
medical terms

24. source: http://blausen.com/atlas/english/human/new

26. Online communities/collaborations
• Patients Like Me: allow people
with life-changing conditions to
connect with one another.
• Data-driven social network health
site

27. source: http://www.patientslikeme.com/

29. Remote diagnostics
• AirStrip: remote patient monitoring via
smartphones and tablets
• Live streaming patient information from
hospital monitoring system to clinician’s
mobile devices
• Information such as heart rate, respiratory
rate and blood pressure

30. source: http://www.airstriptech.com

31. Challenges and
opportunities for rural
healthcare

32. Challenges facing rural healthcare professionals
• Problems of scarcity and distance
• More travel time to visit patients, fewer face-to-face visits
• Communicating with other providers and specialists
• Limited access to medical knowledge and research work
• Lack of networking, learning opportunities

33. Opportunities: Technology enabled solutions
• Email, Skype, social media for communication, consults and education
• Community-based websites for medical information, collaboration, and
bringing people together
• Mobile apps and web conferencing tools for remote diagnosis and patient
monitoring

34. Issues to consider:
• Identify other institutions with common interests and goals
• Collaboration among institution and individual providers
• Integration with work flow
• Effective selection of supportive technologies

35. The biggest challenges are organizational issues, not
technology!
• Lack of buy-in
• Resistance to change
• Lack of technical expertise

36. Getting it right
• Spend time planning
• Patient/clinician driven, not technology driven
• Pilot testing
• Allow for technical difficulties and delay
• Have a backup plan
• Ongoing training and support

37. Questions and discussions

38. Thank you!
• Email: stella_lee@golder.com, stellaylee@gmail.com
Twitter: @stellal
• Skype: starry_java
• Academia.edu: http://athabascau.academia.edu/StellaLee
• LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/stella-lee/1/588/a32