Is Virtual medical care here to stay?
Dr. Rebecca A. Fein
Data Analyst Who Improves Outcomes in Public Health ? Expertise: Data Analysis | Data Quality | Business Process Analysis | Public Health Informatics
Medical care is challenging under the best of circumstances, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many aspects of medical care to the limit, and in some cases to the breaking point. Telemedicine has been on the rise for years, birthed by clinicians who realized they could treat a larger population of patients more cost effectively, by embracing technology. Patients in rural areas are often familiar with telemedicine, and were likely used to it prior to the pandemic. Those outside of rural medicine, or outside of my field (health informatics) were likely late to the telemedicine party.
In February of 2018, I spent a week in Arizona as part of the requirements for my doctorate of Health Science, A.T. Still University required a one week residency. During our time on campus we were given a tour, and the photo above was a photo I took in the virtual anatomy lab.
What does a virtual anatomy lab have to do with the question of virtual medical care being here to stay or not? I'll tell you. Virtual medical education is designed around helping the next generation of medical professionals confidently treat patients in a virtual environment. The pandemic provided additional opportunities for virtual education and virtual care, and smart people took advantage of both.
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I love using virtual medical care. I think it allows for more convenient care, for most issues. For some issues I want to see my clinical care team face-to-face, but for many issues telemedicine allows for more efficient resolutions.
Virtual medical care is here and it is here to stay. Finally, people are learning the power of telemedicine and how it improves the experience for clinician and patient alike. Technology is finally coming into its own in the last frontier of health care, and I am very excited to have been able to be part of this revolution. We've worked hard to bring about this adoption, and although last year we were the untouchables, we were ready to hit the ground running. The benefits people were able to experience by the broad applications of telemedicine will result in greater adoption of virtual care opportunities.
#virtualcare
Data Analyst Who Improves Outcomes in Public Health ? Expertise: Data Analysis | Data Quality | Business Process Analysis | Public Health Informatics
1 年Chase DiMarco MD, PhD-C, MBA, NREMT thoughts??
ChatGPT got 94% on the medical boards. Virtual care 3.0??
Staff Nurse at Hamilton Cross Nursing Agency
3 年Interesting discussion, it's true that one way I the other the practice of medical care is evolving. Certainly theoretical definite milestones can be achieved. However from a practical point of view the absence of a personal physical touch bringing reassurance to clients will be missed. My wife recently required physiotherapy intervention, she only got a telephone consultation with instructions to perform certain exercises. She kind of felt a bit let down because it just felt impersonal. I think perhaps a mixture of both physical and virtual care should work well
Looking forward to a future of Care Everywhere.
3 年Well said Dr. Rebecca A. Fein. What are your thoughts on ease of hand-off of patient data within virtual care? We've found that some people are complimentary about how Health Care Originals, Inc.'s facilitates data hand off, was curious about the general state of handoffs in virtual care and any insights you may have.