Is Telemedicine Finally Heading for the Mainstream?

Last week's panel of tech leaders of Israeli HMOs and Providers offered the attendees of the annual Digital Health Summit (Israel) a snapshot of where we are at. As the moderator of the panel, I asked participants to summarize how is the vision being realized, what have we learned so far and what are the plans moving forward. On stage we had Ofer Visberg of Maccabi Healthcare Services, one of the largest HMO's in the world; Izhar Laufer - Director of Innovation at Leumit Health Services; Shimi Ernst, CIO of the world renown Sheba Medical Center; and Shai Birenboim - CIO of Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center. We also hosted Eugene Dicker of Derma Detect, a startup offering services of remote dermatology checkups.

The bottom line was that we very well may be on the verge of the long-awaited revolution: from fully operational general physician remote services to home hospitalization, from remote psychiatry sessions to skin screening exams - the first instances seem to be popping up everywhere and turning out to be well-accepted by patients and staff.

The participants pointed out that at this stage, it is up to the healthcare organizations to properly redesign their clinical workflows to take into account this new mode of healthcare service.

We will surely check in next year and track progress!

Thanks to Yehuda Konfortes, Executive Editor of People and Computers, for organizing and running a very fruitful day.