UK citizens may soon be able to have examinations via their PCs and mobiles, according to a newspaper report.
Speaking to The Times, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, said he was looking at using online services such as Skype to make the NHS more convenient for users.
The health expert told the newspaper that IT will “completely change the way we deliver medicine” making access to GPs at any time a reality and giving patients the ability to talk to specialists anywhere in the country.
Keogh said: “Once you have online consultations, it breaks down geographical boundaries. It opens up the spectre of 24/7 access. I am looking at how we can put levers into the system to encourage doctors to do online consultations.”
Keogh added that the health service had a long way to go before it caught up with the technological progress of recent decades, arguing that the service had to change to make use of new technology.
Complaints have already been voiced that the new digital age of the NHS could have its downsides as well as its benefits, like cut access to GPs and out-of-hours care being transferred to overseas call centres.
Also speaking in The Times, Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: ”There is scope for initiatives like this. If your child has a rash, your GP could look at it and say ‘you need to come in’ or ‘you need to go to hospital’. It may speed up the process.
”We would be concerned that it could translate to more frustration for patients. People are already concerned that they are spending less time with their GP and we wouldn’t want this to be a way of reducing that further. It should always be the choice of the individual.”
Source: The Times
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The truth is the medical world has a very lopsided view of IT traditionally focused on diagnostic equipment, monitoring, therapeutics. Placing the patient and their rapidly accumulating data and records at the centre of the system opens up boundless possibilities. Studies show that e4xpensive healthcare professionals spend up to 60% of their time waiting and chasing data usually on paper. A wholesale embrace of IT from the home to the surgery and to the operating theatre could free up time to increase the human contact.