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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."
Will my privacy be protected, as per HIPAA, when then they stream video of me lying in a hospital bed, being less than articulate, across the interwebs?
I would like to see a study comparing patient's success rates at self-diagnosis with google vs. a doctor's diagnosis success rate. Every time I've had to go to the doctor lately I've successfully diagnosed myself with the internet and known the treatment before I went, only to pay $120 for a doctor to look at me for 5 minutes and say what I had already guessed.
I'll call them up and tell them that Portland, Oregon is officially considered a "low wage country". I bet they will be surprised!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It has been reported in the Economist and in other business magazines that there's a trend in electronically sending X-rays and other data via the internet to docs in India for review and diagnosis. They then just email back there answers.
For one; it's much much cheaper. Two, there's time difference. So, when or if you do a night shift in the ER, where do you send those X-Rays? Is that Portland radiologist or another still working at 2:00AM?
Teleradiology has been around for quite some time (as you point out). It's not just for outsourcing overseas & small rural hospitals, but also for radiologists who prefer to work out of their home.
On the other hand, it raises questions:
- Is this practicing medicine without a license in the host jurisdiction?
- Who is liable for errors?
- Is the patient aware their care is outsourced?
- Does the patient share in the savings or does the hospital bill the cost of a local radiologist?
- Is the information transmitted securely with due regard for privacy?
They already do this - who do you think reads all those X-Rays?
Radiology is the obvious candidate for outsourcing, but there are legal issues with this. The radiologists in India that can look at films do not have an American medical license. If there is a misread, they are not legally responsible. The hospital can get sued, and they will get accused of using unlicensed radiologists.
What a lot of hospitals do now is that only the films done late at night are outsourced. In my hospital, there is a "night hawk" service that reads the films, and who knows where on earth they are actually located. This is considered a preliminary reading.
When the in-house radiologist comes in the morning, they put in the "official" read.
If the doctor has serious reservations about the outsourced prelim read, they can call a radiologist who is on call at home and wake his ass up to read it. The problem is that the doctor on call, who is not a radioloist, has to recognize that there is a misread.
In reality, my personal experience is that the outsourced guys do a great job at the reading.
This outsourcing would decrease medical costs, but first the government would have to put in legal protections for the medical centers. American radiologist would no doubt be quite pissed and up in arms about this.