TeleSpeech
versus TelePortation
By
Ruben Lopez
Education
Solutions Manager in TeleSpeech
January
25, 2013
We’ve
all heard of the cool, “Star Trek-ie” concepts like:
Teleportation, or getting beamed up, or traveling through time, etc.
But the reality is, this concept is not too far away. As a matter of
fact, it may already being happening now, just in a different format:
it’s called TeleMedicine (or TeleHealth or TeleTherapy or
TeleSpeech). Telemedicine generally refers to the use of
communications and information technologies for the delivery of
clinical care. This is quickly becoming an effective, empowering and
streamlined way of making un-accessible medical or therapeutic care,
a reality, regardless of location, or geographical challenge!
I
consider myself fortunate in that I am able to offer these types of
services today in my line of work. We deliver TeleSpeech services to
schools nationwide. Schools get to tap into their statewide or even
a nationwide pool of candidates to find a Speech Therapist (Speech
Language Pathologist or S.L.P.); the SLP gets to work from home and
doesn’t have to move or quit a job or ask a spouse to give up their
job; or sit in traffic, or waste time traveling from school to
school; and the list of benefits goes on an on. Best of all, the
kids get their speech needs met almost immediately; they get to
“play” with cool and fun touchscreen technology; they get to be
the “cool” kids in the school that meet with their Speech
Therapist virtually. We’ve even piloted, at the request of one of
our school clients, Occupational Therapy across our TeleTherapy
platform since Sept 2012, and it has met their needs perfectly and
without a glitch! Our school client is happy, our OT is happy, and
best of all, the students are getting the OT services they had been
needing for so long, without having to wait anymore! (To learn more
details, feel free to contact me at 888-820-9302.)
For
most of us that live in large cities and even small cities, this is
not a big deal. But when you think of the remotest of cities in the
US, this is a luxury. Take for example the Aleutian Islands of
Alaska. Some of the schools there only get an SLP a few times a year
for a few weeks, and that’s it, because they are 800 miles away
from the nearest city of Anchorage. TeleSpeech completely eliminates
that challenge. Kids can go to school, “meet” with their Speech
Therapist virtually, do speech exercises on-line, get immediate
feedback, and do so a few times a week versus once every few months.
All from the comfort of their school and with the Therapist not
having to hop on an aqua-plane, a ferry ride and a dog sled
Another
great example is Verizon’s Vgo robot (pronounced “Vee-go”) that
is up and running today.
(http://www22.verizon.com/powerfulanswers/vgo/).
The Vgo robot is about the height of 10 year old kid and has a small
monitor and pivoting camera where the head of the child would be.
The child controls where it goes from home from his PC. The child,
who for a myriad of reasons can not physically be in school (because
he’s contagious, or too weak, or lives too far, etc), can attend
school virtually. He speaks to the teachers and his classmates,
roams the hallways, goes to his next class, parks himself at his
desk, and yet he never has to leave his home. And this is also
being done with the Vgo robot in the corporate world, so remote
employees can “be” in their office without having to move across
the world or across the country, and still be in their office, see
their fellow employees, and attend meetings, virtually.
So,
sure, I know, it’s not ideal. And I know it’s not teleportation.
But maybe it’s the next best thing. Or maybe it IS the modern
version of teleportation!...
Call
it what you will, but it the point is, it IS happening now!
So
beam me up Scottie!!
