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For practical reasons, health workers are often unable to talk to home-based patients with chronic conditions on a daily basis – but they could keep an eye on an online medical record that is automatically updated whenever the patient measures their own blood pressure, checks their weight, or takes their medication. Such technology could help medical workers ensure remote patients are healthy, and detect any problems at an early stage before they become serious. The move beyond traditional telehealth – remote contact with a patient through phone calls or video conferencing – is being encouraged by the Continua Health Alliance, a non-profit open industry group. The alliance boasts some powerful players in both the technology and medical arenas, including IBM, Intel, Google, Kaiser Permanente and the UK's National Health Service. "We're moving into a 'Web 2.0'-style healthcare model," says Chuck Parker of Continua. "The medical provider doesn't have to be logged in at the same time as the patient to see the data." Read the full article at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17513-innovation-is-the-future-of-healthcare-online.html?full=true&print=true |
While we don't yet have holographic physicians to consult,
healthcare is moving online, encouraged by an international coalition of medical
and technology companies. Medical devices from weighing scales to asthma
inhalers could soon carry the technology to connect directly to the web,
shuttling data between doctors and their patients.