February 7th, 2008
Remote medicine ready for prime time?
The flip answer is yes. Didn’t you see House after the Super Bowl?
Since I last wrote about this a week ago, there has been a flood of new publicity in this area.
Much of the push is fueled by Cisco, which has a medical telepresence system dubbed HealthPresence to sell. The Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland has a unit, and they’re already thinking of going beyond the current test.
As The Guardian notes remote medicine has been around for ages. Radio News described this futuristic approach to diagnosis back in 1924.
While technology pushed it forward in the 1990s cost pressures are pushing it now. Problem is, Cisco hasn’t yet priced HealthPresence. Hard data is hard to come by.
That’s the aim of the Aberdeen trial. Get hard data, think about expansion, and test to see whether this approach medicine does indeed save money.
Another approach to the same aim is for the doctor to go to the patient and bring the technology as a back-up. How would that work for you?
So, are you ready to do a remote diagnosis? Or is this still just for TV doctors?
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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