The future of patients seeing the doctor is via websites or apps rather than visiting the surgery according to a news report on www.jordantimes.com
Telemedicine is on the rise, and a pioneering company from Boston called American Well have developed a service called Ask Me which enables the remote treatment of patients via video conferencing. American Well are not alone, with several companies having developed products to enable patient treatment via telemedicine.
Grace Century CEO and Director of Research has a more cautious view on the everyday use of telemedicine, commenting: “I don’t think that this will replace traditional office visits or the way patients interact with the primary care physicians. In my opinion, this is an “add-on”. It will benefit in; non-critical care when you need general help, like a clinic in a drug store does; on the other ends of the spectrum , when time is crucial, this can be a fast and possibly lifesaving tool for a physician “specialist” to see someone far away; and when the patient is geographically unavailable, like in a rural setting, to see a physical.”
Wolf added: “This isn’t a replacement, but another tool that will become commonplace, in our opinion, and invaluable in the effort to improve healthcare and reduce costs. This is the mantra of our EMR project partner Quantum’s cloud based MU2 certified platform, which will have a telemedicine portal.”
