“Medicine today is currently set up to be maximally imprecise,” Dr. Eric Topol says. Regular readers of Crackinghealthcosts.com will understand that comment.
Topol, one of the world’s foremost cardiologists, has been a bit of a gadfly to Big Pharma and the medical profession. He discusses a coming revolution in how personal health care will be delivered. There is a huge amount of talk these days about “telemedicine” and “digital” healthcare. Most of what I’ve seen hasn’t been very promising, frankly.
Topol describes something something called iDoctor, and other apps, that are as promising as anything I’ve seen so far. See this YouTube video for a full explanation. Via iDoctor, huge numbers of tests can be done more cheaply and faster and could be much less wasteful in terms of patients’ time and convenience. (As we all know, waste in U.S. healthcare is prodigious.)
For example, the video shows an iPhone app that can instantly produce a cardiogram in a doctor’s office, thus “avoiding a $100 technician” fee and avoiding wasted time and inconvenience to the patient…all in one office visit. Let’s call that one-stop shopping.
Let’s hope doctors use this tool to save time, money and patient irritation.
The iDoctor Will See You Now
Via iDoctor, huge numbers of tests can be done more cheaply and faster and could be much less wasteful in terms of patients’ time.
