Telemedicine is one of my favorite topics because it provides the solution for the challenge of providing healthcare to a larger segment of the population without incurring the expense of adding bricks-and-mortar structures (see: The Future of Healthcare: Virtual Physician Visits & Bedless Hospitals; The Design of Bedless Hospitals Continue to Evolve Based on Cost and Technology; Some Additional Ideas About the Bedless Hospitals of the Future). Another problem we are facing is inadequate healthcare coverage in rural parts of the country (see: Doctor Shortage In Rural Arizona Sparks Another Crisis In 'Forgotten America'). Telemedicine can also help solve this problem (see: Kelowna doctors hail the benefits of telemedicine). Below is a article on this latter topic:
...[T]wo Kelowna [British Columbia] doctors are hailing the benefits of telemedicine for patients who live in remote or rural areas. The doctors said the technology can drastically cut down on travel time and help deal with the challenges of providing health care over B.C.’s large and relatively sparsely populated regions. The report is based on work done out of Kelowna. A group of....[surgeons], working in the field of thoracic surgery and based out of Kelowna General Hospital, provided follow-up appointments and new patient consultations via secure video conferencing for over a decade. Over a thirteen year period, starting in 2003, they used videoconferencing for over 15,000 appointments to treat patients from around the Interior Health and Northern Health regions....“It’s often better than seeing the patient ‘in-person’ as I now see them with a family member who might not have been able to travel to Kelowna, [said one of the participating physicians].....The doctors did not feel like their work was compromised by not being able to physically examine the patients during video conferencing appointments.“We do not consider the inability to do a physical examination to be a serious weakness of telemedicine,”....“All patients have been previously examined by their referring physicians. The surgeon conducting the telemedicine session can request a local physician to perform an examination.”
Most articles on telemedicine relate to support for primary care physicians so the one cited above praising the use of the technology by surgeons is useful. As telemedicine is more broadly utilized, new advantages may also come to light that are not always previously understood. For example, one of the surgeons quoted above refers to the value of having a family member of a preoperative patient participate in a televisit visit. In this way, there are two sets of "eyes and ears" listening and participating in the visit. Although telemetry can provide real-time physiologic monitoring during a patient visit, this has not been necessary for the thoracic surgeons quoted above because the patients have already been seen by the referring local physician. Virtual critical care centers employing such telemetry are now the norm in many smaller hospitals so remote physiologic monitoring is well understood and safe (see: Staffing An Intensive Care Unit From Miles Away Has Advantages).
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