Medicare at a Distance
It’s getting increasingly sophisticated:
At the local hospital in McCandless, Pa., where Mr. Buirge sought treatment, the 58-year-old lay in bed as a stroke specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 15 miles away, watched him on a giant TV, courtesy of a video camera in Mr. Buirge’s room. The diagnosis was critical, since for most stroke patients, a clot-dissolving drug received shortly after arriving at a hospital can reduce the effects of stroke and limit permanent disabilities. But the risk is that for some patients with a certain type of stroke, such a drug can actually increase bleeding in the brain and boost the chance of death.
After reviewing Mr. Buirge’s vital signs and a CT scan, the stroke specialist used the remote camera to check such things as the patient’s speech and eye movements and his ability to follow commands. The Pittsburgh-based doctor then recommended that the local hospital administer the drug, called tPA.
Full story is by Ben Worthen in The Wall Street Journal.
This kind of technology has the capacity to really open up the medical tourism market without patients having to travel. Once you can be treated at a distance, you effectively will be able to shop for care all over the world.
This type of distance medicine has real potential for rural communities and developing countries.
The U.S. military has been doing this sort of thing for years. Within minutes, the severity of a battlefield wound can be ascertained and medical specialists can perform life-saving treatments. In some cases, they can even do limited types of remote surgery using 3-D cameras and other tools.
Cool stuff.
They’ve also been using this kind of telemedicine for other kinds of treatment in remote sections of the West–one Utah car crash case comes to mind.
The US medical system is far more innovative than the US government and rent seeking policy types would have us believe.
This technology has the potential to revolutionize the delivery of healthcare but, no such chance with Obamacare—it’s goal is to reduce access to specialists.
Well, it’s a compelling story, but I think the reporter could have dug deeper into the hospitals’ claims that they don’t charge for the service: Nationwide got its funding from the federal government. Health Information Technology (HIT) funding is an opaque morass and I hate to see promising technology become just another earmark. And, while we’re at it, why should CIGNA or any insurer pay for video-conferencing as an explicit service? Dr. Goodman and Dr. Herrick emphasize entrepreneurs bundling and re-packaging services. The insurer should pay to treat the diagnosed illness, and providers should figure out the technology required.