Can videoconferencing effectively replace in-person presentations, and if so, how?
Gail P. Barker, PhD, Janae Cooley, Elizabeth A. Krupinski, PhD, Richard A. McNeely, MS, Ronald S. Weinstein, MD Arizona Telemedicine Program, Tucson, AZ Overview: The Arizona Telemedicine Program, based in Tucson, Arizona, holds bi-monthly telemedicine training conferences. As part of the curriculum the Associate Director, Finance gives a 30-minute lecture on the business of telemedicine. In July 2006, the finance director moved to Phoenix, 120 miles northwest of Tucson, and began giving lectures by videoconference. Six in-person lectures were compared to 6 videoconference lectures and 3 modalities within the videoconference lectures were evaluated. Materials and Methods: Six in-person lectures from the period 6/05 through 6/06 were measured against 6 videoconference lectures performed 11/06 through 8/07. The identical material was presented for all lectures. Five categories were measured using a scale from 1-5, with 5 being best. The 5 and 4 category results are detailed below.
