Virtual Care
People are beginning to question why Virtual Health care hasn’t grown faster. The idea of sitting in your living room, skyping with your family practitioner on a chilly Tuesday afternoon is vividly appealing for all. [Of course this method should only be used for all non-serious cases and routine check-ups.]
A Mass. Doctor does just this frequently. In one particular case, a three-year old patient is terrified of the doctor’s office after a traumatizing surgery, so, Dr. Hartman of Westwood-Mansfield Pediatric Associates checks in on Anish while he’s in the comfort of his own home.
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/10/health-reform-virtual-care/
The problem that arises in the article falls back to the faithful issue in life – money.
How does a doctor charge billable hours for time spent online? Where’s the incentive for the doctor to even attempt these types of “New” healthcare techniques. For them Social Media seems to be unneccesary, mostly because of the demand of physcians, they’re needed they don’t have to normally go out there marketing themselves. Truthfully, how many of the doctors out there are going to give up their free evenings to skype with patients, for free? I guess until there’s a way to bill patients for an online/inhome visit, time will only tell.
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/10/health-reform-virtual-care/
There's also the issue of accountability. My uncle emailed his doctor telling him about his symptoms a few years ago. The doctor told him not to worry, that there was a bug going around an that he sound feel better in a few days. Well he actually got worse.
ReplyDeletePerhaps 2 days later, he woke up, got dressed, and lost consciousness as he was putting on his pants. The EMS arrived and took him to hospital where he was pronounced dead 8 hours later.
What responsibility does the doctor have in this circumstance? According to our legal system, enough of a responsibility to pay for my Uncle's daughter's house. My cousin lost her father, and at least to some degree, the doctor telling him that he was fine made him believe that that was the case, dissuading him from coming in for an actual check-up, which likely would have caught the problem soon enough to deal with. Instead, my uncle went septic as the doctors scrambled to make any sense of what was happening to him, and my cousin got a house in place of her father.
Not quite what anyone would have hoped for... and "virtual healthcare" played a role in that.
Wow - Alex, I'm sorry to hear that. What a tragic account. I do think that you are right when it comes to accountability. I think it is very important for a health care clinician to emphasize that nothing (so far) can replace an actual face to face diagnosis.
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