Medical Consultations With Webcams Extremely Successful

AgaveNectar writes "Doctors are far from being early adopters, so they have just gotten around to publishing a report that webcams help immensely with making the right decision when someone shows up to a rural emergency room suffering from a stroke. Using clot-destroying medications like Alteplase is really risky, and it should only be given in acute cases. In a study of 222 patients, rural ER doctors consulted with faraway stroke specialists. They made the right decision 98 percent of the time when the expert examined the patient with a webcam, and only 82 percent of the time when they just talked to each other on the phone. Perhaps this report will finally convince the medical community that telemedicine is important."

Comments

How long until greedy HMO's require...

[bobdotorg]

...Pay-per-view gynecology.

Could be worse though. ER tech, "This guy says he slipped and fell on a fusili statue. Here: take a look."

Turing Test?

[belmolis]

Medical Consultations With Webcams Extremely Successful

I'm amazed that nobody has noticed that this means that webcams have passed the Turing test.