Telehealth is generally frustrating for the clinician and often equally frustrating for the patient. But, as house calls no longer exist (except for the supremely wealthy), they can be life savers for the homebound.
That patient was likely frustrated at the quality of the interaction, but likely appreciated being able to meet with her doc…
Telehealth is generally frustrating for the clinician and often equally frustrating for the patient. But, as house calls no longer exist (except for the supremely wealthy), they can be life savers for the homebound.
That patient was likely frustrated at the quality of the interaction, but likely appreciated being able to meet with her doctor at all, without the prohibitively exhausting all-day trip to the hospital that a 30-minute in-person visit would entail. And perhaps the daughter was able to ask questions and learn more about her mother’s conditions and her doctor’s approach to them.
This does not mean that the current state of the telehealth visit is in any way acceptable. Better and timely IT support would immediately improve what we currently have. But current tech has a long way to go to reproduce the most important aspects of an in person visit.
We must push our hospital administration not to accept the status quo of telehealth visits and advocate for our IT folks to look constantly for better technical approaches to virtual visits.
I have done teleconferences as a patient but only when I have had to. As officially a senior citizen and labelled as disabled I have experienced both and you are correct, nothing replaces an in-person visit (however brief) to a teleconference.
Telehealth is generally frustrating for the clinician and often equally frustrating for the patient. But, as house calls no longer exist (except for the supremely wealthy), they can be life savers for the homebound.
That patient was likely frustrated at the quality of the interaction, but likely appreciated being able to meet with her doctor at all, without the prohibitively exhausting all-day trip to the hospital that a 30-minute in-person visit would entail. And perhaps the daughter was able to ask questions and learn more about her mother’s conditions and her doctor’s approach to them.
This does not mean that the current state of the telehealth visit is in any way acceptable. Better and timely IT support would immediately improve what we currently have. But current tech has a long way to go to reproduce the most important aspects of an in person visit.
We must push our hospital administration not to accept the status quo of telehealth visits and advocate for our IT folks to look constantly for better technical approaches to virtual visits.
I have done teleconferences as a patient but only when I have had to. As officially a senior citizen and labelled as disabled I have experienced both and you are correct, nothing replaces an in-person visit (however brief) to a teleconference.