Interview with Rifat Latifi, MD, FACS
Associate Professor of Surgery and Trauma and Critical Care,
University Medical Center, Tucson Arizona
The following interview was conducted by
Bob Pyke, Jr. RN, CPNP
Assistant Editor & Roving Reporter, TelehealthNet News
2005
05/26/2006
How did you become involved in telemedicine?
Looking back on my past, I have been involved one way or another in telemedicine since I graduated from medical school. Initially, I had a medical column in an Albanian daily newspaper called Rilindja. Later, I had a medical radio show on the Voice of America. Finally, I started the telemedicine project in Kosova, after the work at MITAC with Dr. Merrell. Sharing the medical knowledge and spreading it to as many people as possible from a distance is the key concept of telemedicine. I maintain that concept as my main guidepost in my surgical academic carrier. Teaching healthcare providers at their moment of need, and educating and making patients partners in their care are the dictum of my work. And telemedicine does exactly that. I love it.
Who are the patients that you serve?
At the ATP, we serve rural Arizona. This patient population does not have specialist care even though they are the most in need. The Southern Arizona Teletrauma and Telepresence Program, when fully operational, will serve more than 1.2million. In addition, there are lots of patients who cross the border from Mexico and need trauma and emergency care services.
What type of equipment do you use in your program?
Currently, we are using the ATP network and VitelNet equipment.
What area do you see as best suited for telemedicine?
Stabilization of the patient before the transfer (if needed), and then post operative follow-up is the best use of telemedicine in trauma and emergency care. Once the infrastructure becomes more wide spread, we can monitor the patient in the small hospital intensive care unit, and become true partners with rural doctors and other healthcare providers.
Are you using telemedicine in conjunction with grand rounds?
Yes, all grand rounds at the University of Arizona are broadcast and available on the Net.
What research is the university's telemedicine program involved with?
We are using the Arizona Telemedicine Network for many different research projects. Most of our work in published on our website http://www.telemedicine.arizona.edu/
How is your program funded for teletrauma?
Currently this work is being done as a pilot project, but it will become part of the ATP. Physicians will charge for the consults.
What do you want to do personally in telemedicine? And in what direction would you like to see your program go in the future?
I would like to continue to popularize telemedicine. In one year, I would like to have the entire SATT network completed. In five years, my hope is that all trauma centers will perform teletrauma as part of their outreach programs. Using telemedicine will become a routine practical issue in 10 years. At that point, use of telemedicine will no longer be news.
I am convinced that one of the most exciting areas in telemedicine is the potential role it may have in international health care and disaster responses. And of course teletrauma can play an important role. What is your view?
This is where all the values of telemedicine culminate. This is a reason why I, and many others, have started with this. It is the best feeling in the world when you can resuscitate someone from the jaws of death from a distance. There's nothing better, nothing more valuable. You know that if you have not been there virtually, the patient would have died.
What can be done to continue to promote telemedicine/teletrauma in the United States, Eurasia, and other parts of the world?
We need to publish the work done, persist with development and document every case that we manage. Networking with other telemedicine programs is essential. Hopefully, we can push the industry to lower their prices.
The day will come that if a trauma patient dies in the small hospital that does not have trauma surgeon, someone will ask the question: Did you use your teletrauma system for help to call the regional trauma center? No one should die because there was no trauma expertise in a small hospital. No one!
David Balch, who recently retired from the Advanced Telemedicine Training Center at Eastern Carolina University, told me that he thought telemedicine as we know it would disappear, and that telemedicine would become so common on our desktop that we take it for granted. What do you think?
I hope he is correct. I share that thought too.
What words of advice can you offer to your colleagues?
Do not be afraid to use telemedicine. Use the technology and experiment with it. If I can do it, every one should be able to do it. We are obligated to share knowledge, to guide those who do not know how to treat a patient. That is our job. We need to push the envelope as far as we can.
You may contact Dr Latifi at: Rlatifi@email.arizona.edu or at Rlatifi@pol.net
A capsule biography: Dr. Latifi was born in Kllodernice, a village in the Drenica region of Kosova. Dr. Latifi is the author and/or editor of 8 books and more then 100 articles, reviews, and chapters on surgical nutrition and metabolism, and laparoscopic surgery, and telemedicine and telesurgery. He is c urrently he is working on two more books: Guidelines to establishing e-Health and telemedicine in developing countries: The do's and don'ts; and Complete Surgical Critical Care.
Dr. Rifat Latifi is Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, Director, Surgical Critical Care, and Associate Director of Trauma and Critical Care at the University of Arizona, Tucson ( http://www.surgery.arizona.edu/ ). He is a director of the Southern Arizona Teletrauma and Telemedicine (SATT) Program and an Associate Director of Arizona Telemedicine Program where he leads Telesurgery and International Affairs for this program. He is founding Co-Director of the Arizona Surgery and Technology Education Center (ASTEC) at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine.
In addition, he is the founder of the International Virtual e-Hospital, and Director of the Telemedicine Project of Kosova ( http://www.ivhospital.org/ ). He is also a founder of the Kosova Foundation for Medical Development, a non profit organization dedicated to establishing telemedicine in the Balkans and other developing countries.
Dr. Latifi principal interests in telemedicine are international collaborations and development of telemedicine in underdeveloped countries worldwide and in rural America. Furthermore he has special interest in developing and applying telemedicine principles in surgery, trauma and critical care, telementoring and teaching, as well as developing multimedia learning modules and Internet applications for international teaching.
Among his recent accomplishments, in his role as director of the Telemedicine Project of Kosova, Dr. Latifi introduced the idea of the creation of the Telemedicine Program of Kosova and International Virtual e-Hospital, at the Final conference of G8 in Berlin, on May 5, 2000, on Global Health Application Project (GHAP). The Telemedicine Centre of Kosova was inaugurated on December 10, 2002, and is one of the best telemedicine centers in Europe. Its development represents the first step of implementation of the Telemedicine Project of Kosova and in the Balkans. Subsequently, Dr. Latifi chaired the organization of the First Intensive Balkan Telemedicine Seminar held in Prishtina, where there were 400 participants from 21 countries, in October 2002. Since that time, Dr. Latifi has served on the advisory board of European Space Agency for application of satellite in telemedicine and is the author of the section on e-health education and co-author of trauma, emergency and disaster management. In addition, he is co-founder of International Forum for Surgical Research and Telemedicine based at the University of Graz, Austria and at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, USA.
