Smart Devices
Mrs. Elzo did not have to wait till her doctor could put a receiver directly on her chest. Instead, she simply went near a small box, which is attached to a phone jack near her bed. Once a week, she also measures her weight and blood pressure — key indicators of heart failure — and that information is automatically transmitted to her doctor. If there are problems, the machine alerts her doctor.
The biggest problem: information overload.
I like the idea of smart devices. It seems like it hss taken way too long to take full advantage of technology in medicine.
The promise here is the idea of getting a lot more medical care with fewer doctors. And that is going to be increasingly important in the future.
I think the problem is an antiquated payment system. If we had a real market in health care you would see all kinds of smart devices available.
Agree with all of the above. It is the payment system that is holding us back.
The New York Times is becoming a left wing rag. And an unreliable one at that.
Rusty: It was the previous post (about Rwanda) that was outrageous. Gina Kolata’s stuff is usually pretty good.
There have been numerous projects that used telemedicine to better manage heart failure patients remotely. It makes perfect sense — it’s much cheaper than keeping patients in a hospital. But, there is no market so CMS has to rely upon demonstration projects for proof of concept. Once this method becomes mainstream, it will cost many times more than it would under a competitive system where hospitals look for ways to manage conditions efficiently.