A12 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 9, 1996 Hi-tech boosts health care THE FINAL TRAINING has taken place and the newest medical service in the northwest is ready for use. It’s teleradiology and it connects 11 northwest hos- pitals, allowing x-ray and other images fo be -trans- mitted by phone lines, That means places like Stewarl will be as close asa phone line couneclion .te radiology or other services in either Terrace, Kitimat, Smithers or Prince Rupert. No longer will images have be bussed away and lengthy wails endured for resulls, says Stewart hospi- ta] administralor Linda Hyde. : Teleradiology is going to be a particular benefit for emergency cases, added Hyde. “The protocol we're working on is to provide us with immediate service. for emergency cases and up to two days for non-emergency ones,’’ she said. X-ray and other tech- nicians have had their train- ing already and this week it's the turn of radiologists. There will be seven transmit-only stations in Queen Charlotte City, Mas- set, Stewart, Dease Lake, New Aiyansh, Hazelton and Houston. Smithers, Terrace, Prince Rupert and Kitimat will send as well as receive, Health officials say ser- vice will be improved as well as money saved by using teleradiology. The northwest system is viewed as a test case for other areas and is itself an expansion of a previous ser- vice connecting the Queen Charlotte Islands to a Van- couver hospital. , The provincial’ govern- ment kicked in $750,000 for the project with the remain- ing $250,000 coming from northwest hospital districts, Wayne Hay, head of the northwest regional health board, says the system will also have a connection with St. Paul’s in Vancouver so that other specialists can help out when required. — “The technology’s been around for 15 years but’s been a matter of acceptance of the technology and im- provements to images being sent;’’ he said. ; The four send and receive stations will also have the ability to store images on file, “He said the archiving sys- tem can store 55 gigabytes of information, the equiva- lent of approximately 180,000 images. (Current: home computer systems for sale now come with at least a one gigabyte hard drive.) Dr. Keith Neufeld, one of the two radiologists at Mills NO LONGER wil places such as Stewart and Dease Lake have to wait for x-rays to be shipped out and analyzed. Dr. Kelth Neufeld and other radiologists in the northwest are now part of a 11-hospital hookup allowing images to be transmitted via phone lines, Neufeld and one other radiologist will be handling the system here at Mills Memorial Hospital. Memorial Hospital who'll be using the system, says it'll improve the quality of care in the northwest. “This is a way for all communities to have better access,” he said of the ability to provide advice and information to general prac- tioners in other hospitals. Neufeld is a recent-arrival to Terrace and while it sounds like he’s part of an expansion of medical ser- vices, he points out that he'll also be going to Kitimat which had been relying on Vancouver for radiology services. The company providing the technology is Agfa Teleradiology. Docs leery of fee cut ordered by the province a THE ASSOCIATION that represents doc- tors met in Vancouver last week to respond to what amounts to a cut in fees ordered by the provincial government. Al issue is a decision by the government lo pro-rate, or reduce fees, by three per cent up to the end of the budget year next March, The governiment’s medical services com- mission says fee payments are running over what was budgeted and that the amount could hit $80 million. But Terrace physician Dr. Geoff Ap- pleton, who represents northern doctors for the B,C, Medica] Association, says the $80 million is way too high. ‘We are meeting to determine sugges- lions to the commission for other ways of dealing with the situation,” he said. ‘‘We believe the $80 million figure to be very exaggerated and to be a lot less than that.” Yet Appleton did say that the longer the situation continues, the greater the claw- back there will be to balance the books by the end of the budget year, The ability of the government to reduce fees is contained in a deal signed with doc- tors this past June, Physicians agreed to work within the same amount of moncy paid the year before — $1.4 billion, Certain fee increases were granted by physicians agreed to trim some areas of spending to stay within that $1.4 billion cap. One of those areas was limiting to one the number of ultrasounds for healthy pregnant women: X-rays for ankle injuries were also to be eliminated depending upon the extent of the injury. ' Some of thal trimming is working but it takes more than a few months for the sys- tem to adjust, ssid Appleton. And he said doctors aren’t the only people responsible for rising medical costs, “The public comes in and wants an ultrasound so they can see their baby,’’ said Appleton as an example. ‘‘We’re in a lot of pressure to respond to our patients,” The fee cut took effect Oct 1 by reducing by three per cent the amount doctors bill for fee-for-service items. Doctors will be asked to draw down a $26 million reserve kept by the B.C, Medical Association as one way {to offset the anticipated cost overrun. A health ministry spokesman said doctors agreed in their deal of carlier this year to take fee cuts if here were budget overruns. 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