Arizona Telemedicine Program Receives 21st Century Achievement Award From Computerworld Honors Program
Global Information Technology Awards Foundation Pays Tribute to
First-of-a-Kind Video Amphitheater Housed at T-Health in Phoenix
EDITORS UPDATE: The Arizona Telemedicine Program and its T-Health Institute were recently featured in the following article in Computerworld magazine.
Audiovisual technology enhances physician education
Audiovisual technology fosters better collaboration among doctors and a new way of teaching medicine.
June 17, 2008
Contact: Jean Spinelli, (520) 626-7301
The Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) – an organization whose use of information technology has been especially noteworthy for originality of conception, breadth of vision and significance to society – has received the 21st Century Achievement Award (the top award in the Education and Academia Category) from International Data Group (IDG)’s Computerworld Honors Program. The ATP is headquartered at The University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, with facilities in Phoenix, as well.
This year’s honorees were acknowledged earlier this month during the Gala Awards Evening at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Gail P. Barker, PhD, director of the Institute for Advanced Telemedicine and Telehealth (T-Health), a division of the ATP, headquartered at The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University in Phoenix, accepted the award on behalf of the ATP and T-Health.
For two decades, the Computerworld Honors Program has recognized individuals and organizations that have used information technology to benefit society.
Nominated by TANDBERG – a leading global provider of telepresence, high-definition videoconferencing and mobile video products and services – in the Education and Academia category, the ATP was selected for its T-Health facility and educational programs in Phoenix. As an educational institution designed to expand and enhance health care and distance education throughout Arizona, T-Health incorporates both telemedicine and telehealth -- distance learning and health-care delivery -- using a wide range of technologies, including real-time videoconferencing, electronic transmission of digital medical images and data, and the Internet.
“Without the integration of voice, video and data in place, our T-Health Institute would not exist,” said Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, co-founder and director of the ATP. “We are honored that our innovations in telehealth and high-quality telecommunications services are being recognized nationwide.”
Established in 1996 by Dr. Weinstein and State Sen. Robert L. Burns and the Arizona State Legislature, the ATP is recognized as one of the premier telemedicine programs in the nation for its distance health-care services, education and research, provided over a network of more than 170 sites across Arizona.
“Each year, the Computerworld Honors Program seeks to recognize organizations from a variety of sectors for their ongoing efforts to utilize technology in order to benefit society,” said Ron Milton, chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation and executive vice president of Computerworld. “We are proud to provide a platform to publicly acknowledge these contributions.”
T-Health’s state-of-the-art facility is housed at the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with ASU in one of three renovated historic buildings of the original Phoenix Union High School, built in the early 1900s. The multimedia interactive conferencing center includes an auditorium, classrooms, videoconference rooms and media control rooms. Video walls, private teleconference rooms and individual computers bring together medical students, faculty, health-care professionals and patients who are hundreds of miles apart, allowing individual and group interactions. T-Health is the “nerve center” of this new direction in health-care education, which allows medical students to learn medicine throughout Arizona and beyond while remaining on campus; health-care professionals to continue their medical education without leaving their home towns; and physicians, pharmacists, nurses and other health-care professionals to learn to collaborate as more efficient and effective health-care teams for the benefit of patients. (For more information about T-Health, visit the Web site telemedicine.arizona.edu/thealth.)
Every year, members of the Computerworld Honors Program Chairman’s Committee – a group of 100 chairmen and chief executive officers of global information technology companies – nominate individuals and organizations from around the world whose visionary applications of information technology promote positive social and economic progress. Each is invited to contribute a case study and, after review and qualification to meet strict selection criteria, key case studies are granted Laureate status and recognized publicly at a historic medal ceremony in Washington, D.C. Among the Laureates, selected finalists and a select group of 21st Century Achievement Award recipients also are identified and recognized at a separate formal gala ceremony on the same day. Case studies and other primary source materials for all organizations and individuals recognized by the program (including oral histories, conference proceedings, publications, video tapes/DVDs and other records) are preserved, protected and made available to scholars and the general public at www.cwhonors.org. They also are made available to more than 350 affiliated universities, libraries and research institutions around the world.
About Computerworld
Computerworld is the leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide. Computerworld’s award-winning Web site (www.computerworld.com), weekly publication, focused conference series and custom research form the hub of the world’s largest (40+ edition) global IT media network. Computerworld leads the industry with an online audience of more than 2 million unique, monthly visitors and a print audience of 1.2 million readers each week (IntelliQuest CIMS spring 2007).
About International Data Group (IDG)
International Data Group (IDG) is the world’s leading technology media, events, and research company. IDG’s online network includes more than 450 Web sites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment and video games worldwide. IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers in 85 countries including CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Macworld, Network World and PC World. Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at www.idg.com. Note: All product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies.
