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The Arizona Telemedicine Program is hosting the grand opening event for the T-Health Institute.

By Al Bravo, AHSC Office of Public Affairs
October 22, 2009

Ever wonder what 21st century health care might look like?

Consider attending the Arizona Telemedicine Program's grand opening of the Institute for Advanced Telemedicine and Telehealth, or T-Health Institute, in Phoenix on Friday.

The event will be held at the T-Health Institute in the Virginia G. Piper Auditorium, 550 E. Van Buren St., which is located at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University.

Beginning at noon, the day's event will include a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting. 

The grand opening also will include the newest videoconferencing technology in medical education and health-care delivery, which will be demonstrated by students from the nearby Bioscience High School.

The students will use the T-Health Theater in an educational exercise, playing “Jeopardy” in the multi-screen theater to show the capability of the system for inter-professional education.

The theater is a classroom that includes a large video wall capable of connecting students, faculty and multi-media presentations in real time, interactively.

The demonstration is part of a daylong meeting of health-care professionals who use the UA College of Medicine’s statewide Arizona Telemedicine Program network for health-care delivery.

UA President Robert N. Shelton and Arizona Senate President Robert Burns, R-Phoenix, an early proponent of the telemedicine effort in the state will speak during the ceremony, which will also be attended by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. Tours of the facility will be given from 1:30 to 2 p.m.

The renowned Arizona Telemedicine Program is a multidisciplinary, university-based program that provides telemedicine services, distance learning, informatics training and telemedicine technology assessment capabilities to communities throughout Arizona.

T-Health, conceived by Dr. Ronald S. Weinstein, the Arizona Telemedicine Program director, incorporates both telemedicine and telehealth – distance learning and health-care delivery – using real-time videoconferencing, electronic transmission of digital medical images and data and the Internet.

The state-of-the-art facility is housed in one of three renovated historic buildings of the original Phoenix Union High School, built in 1911 but now part of the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

The Arizona Telemedicine Program, created by the Arizona Legislature in 1996, is recognized as one of the premier telemedicine programs in the world for its distance health-care services, education and research, provided over a network of more than 170 sites across Arizona.

Sen. Burns, one of the founders of the program and now chairman of the Arizona Telemedicine Council, was instrumental in the establishment and success of the telemedicine program. Dr. Weinstein, an international authority on telemedicine and telepathology, was appointed founding director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program and continues in that role today.