Teleconsultation to improve healthcare delivery (1)

A recent article in MI suggests that the Health Care sector needs to radically innovate in order to improve the efficiency of healhcare delivery to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The recurring theme in the article seemed to be that some form of Teleconsultation could take the place of traditional office visits in certain circumstances. Taking an hour drive to a clinic or hospital, finding a car park, waiting in the clinic, followed by more queuing for your medicines could be a thing of the past if Teleconsultation could be applied where appropriate. For example, a chronic illness like Hypertension can be largely managed by Teleconsultation, reducing (though not entirely eliminating since face to face consultation and physical examination is needed from time to time) the number of office visits: Does a stable and well-controlled hypertensive patient need to physically consult her doctor every two or three months? Would a virtual consult or even a computer-augmented self-management regime suffice in between annual visits to her physician? Years ago, I had the privilege to visit Kaiser Permanente, a world-renowned Californian integrated care provider. I asked my host: “How often does a well-controlled hypertensive patient need to physically consult?” His response: “Never, we can do everything remotely through the Internet or over the phone.” He added that during the annual in-person general preventive health screening consultation, high blood pressure control ...
Source: Malaysian Medical Resources - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Tags: - Palmdoc Technology Source Type: blogs