TeleSpeech vs TelePortation

I have once again found a great guest writer to take care of my February post for me.  Please meet our guru of TeleTherapy, Ruben Lopez:

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!!