Since we are heading towards a possible economic recession, people will be very attentive at their spendings, by this means people will buy what they urgently need. And while healthcare is one of the priorities with food expenses and housing, we can expect that a cut on that budget occurs, especially for the category that pays for the visits.

In that sense how can we keep with health expenses when our overall budget is tightening? You cut on on your healthcare budget waiting for better times? This is certainly the immediate solution, still, it does not solve the problem, as ignoring your condition will just make it harder to diagnosis and to treat.   Afterall, and we all agree, our health is our most precious capital. What if you could access healthcare services from the comfort of your home, without having to take a day off for a doctor visit and most importantly at an affordable price?

In fact, when considering an online visit, we profit from the following benefits:

-The online consultation’s price is lower than a visit to the emergency room or at a doctor’s office. In the United States for instance, it costs as high as $140 per visit to the emergency room while teleconsultations can be priced as low as $50 without a loss in quality, as online doctors have the same formation as the doctors you visit at the office.

-Consulting a doctor implicates driving a distance, making you lose time and money while teleconsultations can be conducted immediatly and from the comfort and privacy of your home.

-When diagnosing a condition early on, the chances for a fast recovery are higher while avoiding complications. The overall recurring cost, although harder to materialise, from complications and complex diagnosis is reduced and in certain cases, eliminated. In that sense, telemedicine encourages preventive medicine by trying to understand the causes of the medical condition rather than trying to hide its symptomes with drugs; doctor being physically distant from his patient will take the time to circle the problem and propose an indepth solution.

How do you foresee telemedicine and remote consultations in the near future? Do you see yourself as a potential user of such a service? Do you think remote consultations will become mainstream any time soon?

Experience shows that doctors are far from being early adopters, electronic health records (ER) being one of the most recent cases. However, the publication of a study of 222 patients about how webcams can help in decision making when someone shows up in a rural emergency suffering from a stroke. Doctors made the right decision in 98% of the time when using a webcam while they would make the right decision only 82% of the time over the phone.This report should convince that telemedicine is important, as it is not more than a technology gadget but a necessity that can save lifes.  

The consulsion that can be drawn from these results is that using video conferencing helps doctors in decision making, the right decision that can save a life, while it decreases the risk for patients. At TeleDoctor, these facts conforts us and shows that we are heading to the right path as we are developping the most compelling tool to help doctors in decision making as well as offer the best medical service for patients.

Online auto diagnosis can be viewed as the use of the Internet to research for health related reasons, mainly for conditions. In Canada, and according to the NFO CFgroup, a study shows that 75% of Internet users use the Web to search for health-related information. Also, 50% of online Canadians claim that researching health information on the Internet makes them better able to discuss treatment options with their physician. Regarding the most visited Canadian health websites, we have on the top 3:

1. Official Health Canada website.
2. Health sections of Sympatico.ca
3. Health sections of Yahoo.ca 

Concerning the top medical conditions researched online by Canadians, the list is as follows:

1. Depression.
2. Arthritis.
3. Diabetes. 
4. Allergies. 
5. Migraine headaches.
6. Heart condition.

Yes those are lots of statistics.  Let’s take a minute and make a quick analysis.

People are naturally curious, and they tend to talk about their conditions within their close circles before heading to a physician. This comes from a fear of the unknown. There can be many factors that make us reluctant to go to see a physician right away. Among these factors, we can note the waiting time and the accessibility of a physician. So we tend to go online or ask our friends in order to get access to the medical information right away. I came accross the other day on Trusera’s website. I am fortunate enough to not have to sign in and “tell my story”. This website aims to connect people with the same problems. In a sense, they are trying to organize the health information on the web and make it patient/person wise. In my opinion, information should come from physicians. It is legitimate to look at the information online, but we will still be in doubt until we ask a real physician. Medicine is not an exact science and the expertise of a healthcare professional is and will always be, in most cases, the best source of information. 

With Your TeleDoctor, we want to address the void between the visit to a physician and the moment when we start questionning ourselves (online?) or entourage.  Note that the service will be used for minor conditions, only. We had a long talk with our lawyer, as well as with our medical advisor and the best way to avoid lawsuits is to use our service for conditions that are likely to be diagnosed remotely. When we know, that 70% of people that visit a general practionner have minor concerns, we can say that a market opportunity is right there for us. However, the critical question is how to acuratly address this market. 

More to come soon on this question…Please feel free to comment/ask/disturbe my positions. 

These are old news. But still, this matter is crutial for anyone wanting to start a telemedicine service in Quebec.  Myca, a Quebec based company that is going to offer virtual -on call- visits  over Internet, has done a great deal of PR noise which has made the governement react immediatly. Health Minister, Philippe Couillard, was not informed by such a project and personnaly asked that a report should be made available within the next few weeks. In fact, the time span has elapsed and we are still waiting…

The Quebec Party, which is often depicted as the conservative wing in the government, thinks that the project is “extremely disturbing”. For me, thinking that the project cannot replace tradional face to face visits is defendable. However, I think that if you see telemedicine and virtual visits as a complement to the current system, you can easily draw the benefits of such a system. In fact, a video visit can be beneficial for the public health sector as well as this is going to free up places for other people. Understand by other people, patients that could be diagnosed by face to face visits, Jaundice for example. In contrast, other minor medical conditions, like cough or sore throat, can be very suitable for virtual visits. 

The Democratic Action of Quebec, in the other hand, thinks that this is an interesting project. They think that such a service will relieve, to some extent, the waiting rooms in the public sector. I would like to add that their position, similar to the other Canadian provinces as well as our neighbors south, is going to play a decisive role during the next few months, in the decision of the government for the rapid adoption of Internet visits.

Running an Internet medical service right now, in the abscence of legislation, should comply to the same rules as a private clinic. In other words, you need to comply to the deontological code and doctors working with this tool need to take the same precautions as they would when doing medical office consultations. The diagnosis and prescription have to be carefully provided when all the necessary information about the patient is verified and known.

By the way, if someone got any information or statistics on the Quebecers towards Internet medicine, I will be more than happy to have a look at it. I am in the process of looking at this data, maybe compare it with other provinces. Those are the best indication for the success of such a service. Know your market, they say.Please, shoot me an email, if you got any relevant information about Internet medicine. Also, I may be rolling out a poll, when this blog starts to get some traction as well.

Hi there. This is the official blog for the project Your TeleDoctor. I’ll be discussing here all issues related to medical consultations over Internet, not only online consultations but also all the transactions that can be transferred online to better serve healthcare professionals as well as patients.This is our ambition.

In the meantime, we will be building the corresponding web application while carefully gathering data from both your observations and feedback. 

Please feel free to contact us whether you are curious/interested on this project or for any general inquiries about healthcare, web 2.0, consultations and medicine.