Advances in video technology and a need to reduce medical costs have made interactive telemedicine a growing business. The NYT covers the rise of telemedicine The Doctor Will See You Now. Please Log On.
Spurred by health care trends and technological advances, telemedicine is growing into a mainstream industry. A fifth of Americans live in places where primary care physicians are scarce, according to government statistics. That need is converging with advances that include lower costs for video-conferencing equipment, more high-speed communications links by satellite, and greater ability to work securely and dependably over the
Internet.
Christine Chang, a health care technology analyst at Datamonitor’s Ovum unit, says telemedicine will allow doctors to take better care of larger numbers of patients. “Some patients will be seen by teleconferencing, some will send questions by e-mail, others will be monitored” using digitized data on symptoms or indicators like glucose levels, she says.
Eventually, she predicts, “one patient a day might come into a doctor’s office, in person.” link to read article
Source: New York Times
