3G Doctor Signals the Return of House Visits
7th of November 2007 by conor
There is finally a practical use for the front facing camera on your 3G phone and it comes in the shape of remote medical consultations courtesy of the Kerry-based 3G Doctor.
The mobile telcos have never been able to live up to their own hyperbole when they paid billions for their 3G licences. Apart from faster data connections for mobile warriors, the services have taken forever to trickle out. This one has the potential to be huge and Ireland is the perfect place to launch from.
Getting medical attention in Ireland is becoming more and more of a strain. From queuing for hours at GP clinics just in case to out-of-hours services that only work if you live in big towns, we need something to reduce pressure on the system. Here in Cork if you need out-of-hours help you call SouthDoc and a nurse triages you over the phone. They err well on the side of caution and seem to always tell you to come into the clinic. The problem is that phrases like bleeding profusely are far too subjective.
Imagine then that you arrange a call to the 3G doctor on your phone. They can actually see your complaint and can decide if [a] you are fine, use a band-aid [b] you need to go to a clinic for some stitches or [c] you are bleeding to death, call an ambulance. This remote view of symptoms is far more efficient and is a major help to those who live rurally. It is also a full diagnosis rather than the basic Q&A that e.g. the VHI or NHS helplines provide.
Obviously they cannot do prescriptions but I cannot wait for the day when this is possible. In years to come, we will hopefully see a range of home diagnostic equipment which would allow doctors to say for sure that you have a bacterial chest infection, please go to the pharmacy and get Augmentin-Duo. Companies like BiancaMed with their non-invasive health analysis systems are sure to be at the forefront of that if it does happen.
This is one of those service that just clicks with me, it just makes complete sense. Both the HSE here and NHS in the UK should be actively working with and supporting these guys to make this service accessible and known to as big an audience as possible. It really is a win-win for doctors and patients.
Of course it could be extended to deal with a particular annoyance of mine – OAPs filling up GPs waiting rooms every day with non-complaints. Could a service be created that leverages retired doctors to deal with these OAPs? It would be another pressure-reducer on our creaking health systems.
One area I discussed with David Doherty from 3G Doctor was Microsoft's HealthVault. I wondered if their own Health Record was in competition to it? His answer impressed me
HealthVault is one of the more open health record solutions and as with all the others we'll be doing our utmost to work with it. However at 3G Doctor we provide patient tools and this is more of a health care provider tool. We find it hard to see the mass market appeal of a stand alone health care record for consumers because patients find it hard/impossible to appreciate the value.
The average patient is several years away from being comfortable with the idea of HealthVault but I think they are more than ready for a service like 3G Doctor.
Comment posted by Conor O’Neill
at 11/29/2007 8:54:00 AM
Thanks for all that great extra information Fiona.
I've suggested your service to a few people who had conditions that could easily have been figured out over 3G rather than forcing them out in the cold to visit SouthDoc!
Comment posted by Dr Kavanagh
at 11/29/2007 8:32:22 AM
Hi Conor,
Thanks for your enthusiasm for 3G Doctor I'm sorry to hear of your disappointment with waiting room times.
Clearly 3G Doctor is all about taking the wait out of getting professional advice but I'd have to slightly disagree with you on the burden you suggest that OAPs with non-complaints have on our healthcare system. Not only have their contributions paid for the building of the healthcare systems that we have today but their use of the services are unavoidable and limited. In fact, statistics show the vast majority of care costs are currently spent on chronic care conditions and although many older people suffer with these, many are preventable and are determined at a much earlier age resulting in more expensive and much longer overall care requirements.
Although we would be delighted if older people felt comfortable using 3G Doctor to avoid having to travel in the cold weather to attend a clinic for some minor advice or guidance, we feel that even more value could be generated by using early and interventional care initiatives that could help younger people avoid and prevent against the development of major chronic conditions. At 3G Doctor we have made available a tool that enables the creation, management and storage of a personal health record and health diary. All this requires patients to have is a 3G mobile phone (no wires, PC, Monitor, webcam, mouse, keyboard here!) and they can begin to take control of their own health information safe in the knowledge that they have the advice and support of our health professionals on hand at anytime.
Because 3G Doctor brings patients closer to healthcare professionals with greater levels of convenience and privacy it is in an unique position to help prevent against the onset of many chronic diseases which asides from cost are also associated with many other quality of life issues for patients as well as friends, family and carers. This is particularly important for conditions which have significant lifestyle or social elements to them eg. obesity & related disease, smoking, alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, etc.
If any readers would like to learn more about this I'd suggest a recent (FREE) report by the Californian Health Foundation which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.chcf.org/documents/chronicdisease/HealthCareUnpluggedTheRoleOfWireless.pdf
As for your comment on the possibility for cooperation with the NHS and VHi you'll be pleased to know that in 2008 we're set to announce cooperation with a large number of NHS clinics in the UK who want to support their patients with out of hours, minor advice and international services (eg. if they leave the UK on business/vacations). We'd love to do the same with the Irish systems and think there is also an enormous opportunity for the Irish public healthcare system to leap frog many of the expensive eHealth mistakes made by the NHS' (such as the £12 Billion NPfIT programme) to deliver Irish patients a completely personalized mHealth service that would also take advantage of this countries affinity with mobiles and wireless.
We greatly appreciate your comments and those we have already received from the interesting readers of your blog.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Fiona
3G Doctor Ltd
Comment posted by AlexiaBlogs Blog Archive Red Links 8/11/07
at 11/7/2007 11:03:42 PM
[] 3G doctors – the future of far-flung and out of hours medicine? Via Conor of BlogNation Ireland. []
Comment posted by 3G Doctor Signals the Return of House Visits by Conor's Bandon Blog
at 11/7/2007 10:04:55 AM
[] written all about it here. I'd be interested to hear what you think and whether the 3G coverage is good enough yet so []