The Division of eHealth and Telemedicine focuses on the use of technology for improving the delivery of clinical care.  Our areas of interest include Internet-based chronic disease management, technologies for case management of congestive heart failure patients, and technologies for the development of imaging networks for executing multi-center clinical trials.

Our chronic illness initiatives include the development of MyCareTeam, an Internet-based application designed to monitor and provide homecare management for people with diabetes and other chronic diseases. A pilot study performed at Georgetown University Medical Center showed that the MyCareTeam application contributed to the reduction in HbA1c by 2 points in patients with uncontrolled diabetes within six months.  A randomized control trial of MyCareTeam is was completed at the Boston Veterans Administration Healthcare System.  Results showed positive improvements in clinical outcomes similar to what was seen in the GU pilot study.  A new initiative as begun that uses the MyCareTeam approach to diabetes management in Native Communities (titled Sacred Breath) across the United States and for diabetes and pregnancy at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.  Sacred Breath incorporates Native communities, including Native Hawaiians, and American Indian tribes including Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation, Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Nez Perce Tribe, Tlingit and Haida Tribes, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux.  The integration of MyCareTeam into the existing diabetes programs at Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation, Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Nez Perce Tribe, Tlingit and Haida Tribes, and within the Native Hawaiian communities has begun.  Initial contacts have been made with the Rosebud Sioux and Oglala Sioux of South Dakota.  

MindmyHeart is a Medicare demonstration project awarded to the Georgetown University Medical Center to study the effects of intensive case management of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) patients by care managers using home monitoring technologies.  This project focuses on the reduction of clinical complications and Medicare costs, along with an improvement in patient health.  Wireless home monitoring technologies, manufactured by HomMed Inc., are installed in patient’s homes to transmit daily vital signs (weight, blood pressure, and pulse oximetry) to a centralized server.  Care managers routinely check the vital signs, provide full-level care coordination, and perform scheduled assessments of the patients using internet-based monitoring software designed by Canopy Systems and assessment and care coordination tracking tools developed by the eHealth and Telemedicine group at the ISIS Center.

A digital imaging network was developed to facilitate a multi-center clinical trial of a rare disease, Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), using the Next Generation Internet (NGI), was established in 2000.  Magnetic Resonance Images for ALD studies from 15 institutions around the world were electronically transferred to the Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) using secure technologies, the DICOM standard, and internet and NGI communications. Our collaboration with the KKI was funded by the National Library of Medicine to evaluate the NGI’s role in providing real-time teleradiology for the purpose of executing multi-center clinical trials of rare diseases. This initiative ended in September of 2003.

Division Director:  Betty Levine, MS
Program Manager & Compliance Officer:  Pam Angelus, MSN