News Report #2

News Report #2

“New in ’09: You won’t go in to see the doctor”
Elizabeth Cohen CNNHealth
1/15/09
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/15/ep.trends.in.ehealth/index.html?eref=rss_tech

Online doctor visits? That is the future prediction to take off in 2009. Recently, a busy actor found himself feeling under the weather and called on his doctor. Within the hour, the doctor was chatting live to the actor on the internet, diagnosed him and sent him a prescription. Typically, the average person will schedule an appointment months in advance, sit in a waiting room for at least 1 hour, wait to see the doctor for at least 15 minutes and are done within the next 20 minutes. All this can be a thing of the past with new advances in this new idea. Everything is done differently because of the internet yet everyday thousands of people visit into a doctor’s office for a simple cold or sore throat. Meredith Ressi, the vice president of research for Manhattan Research, says that we should expect to see many doctors close their private practices and open “telehealth” practices where they can deliver their services over the internet. For a small fee, chatting with doctors live or asking a doctor simple questions could be some of the services offered.

Personally, I think this is a crazy yet innovative and excellent idea. For me, I would love to be able to get a prescription for a sinus infection quickly and over the internet. Making an appointment around my busy schedule, waiting and picking up the prescription is very time consuming and that could be solved with this new “eHealth” idea. Again, internet is more amazing every day. This does have some caveats, however. Patients could be misdiagnosed or pretending in order to get medications which could be very dangerous for some people’s health. It is fascinating to see where this innovation could be by the end of the year. There are always pros and cons in technology but whatever the outcome, I am sure people will benefit from this new service.