This technology comes into it's own in chronic disease management. A ludicrous proportion of folks now have chronic disease(s) that require seriously costly investigations. Many (most?) conditions require more sophisticated analysis than a simple "where does it hurt", and take a multidisciplinary team to manage or treat.
If you consider the sheer amount of data that comes back from the path lab with a single full blood panel, it would be seriously inefficient to share that information over the phone, professional to professional. Consider a chronic cardiac condition, where your GP needs to monitor biomarkers in the blood, as well as regularly view a series of medical images. Something like images from cardiac catheterisation get to be a decent size if they're real-time images, and you can't simply explain, professional to professional "that there's a smudgy bit there near the ventricular wall". My GP now uses digital xray technology, which means that he can see me, send me round to radiology, and then have me back almost instantly to interpret the results of my xray.
There are several key advantages here - firstly, speed of information sharing. Secondly, as the health professional (GP, specialist, allied health) contributes to the digital medical record, it allows for a more comprehensive patient history. Imagine the possibilities of being able to refer a patient from your general practise to a dermatologist, not only with a letter, but a series of images that track the changes of the patient's skin over time? Thirdly, imagine if you're in a rural location, if they can get some portable imaging equipment and run a regular clinic near you (or using the specialty equipment already located closer to home) - the speed and efficacy of information sharing between practitioners will be vastly improved. You might not need to be seeing your city based specialist quite so often if your GP can review and consult with the specialist based on the more detailed information they can now more easily share.
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Originally Posted by Peter Ward
My local Doc is flat out seeing patients as it is & have a sneaking suspicion putting a webcam in his office would not allow him to make more hours in the day to see even more patients.... more front-line medico's I suggest is what is really needed.
I'd also be interested in hearing from any GP's on how clinical presentation of a patient, who is not in the clinic could actually work. eg: poke youself here? does it hurt?
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