E-consultations a boon for Singapore patients
VIDEO CALLS with doctors will become common in public healthcare centres soon. This can free up doctors' time for patients who need the personal touch.
If all goes according to plan, video calls with doctors will become part and parcel of the healthcare experience in years to come.
Even so, the announcement that a national video consultation system will be rolled out in all public healthcare institutions has raised a few eyebrows.
“How is it possible for a doctor to give a systemic and rigorous assessment of a patient's condition with only a video image?” one reader wrote in to ask last month.
“If the health condition of a patient... suddenly worsens in the midst of the call, will the hospital authorities be held liable?”
His questions were echoed on social media, with people wondering whether even the most sophisticated technology can match up to a face-to-face doctor's visit.
These are valid concerns, but they miss the point. Telehealth is not for everyone - but it was never meant to be.
Pick your patients right, and it becomes a powerful tool that can make routine consultations less of a hassle for everyone involved.
Last month, healthcare technology agency Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) announced the new video call system, which provides a common platform for public healthcare institutions to speak with their patients virtually.
No special equipment is needed - a smartphone will do, or a computer with a Web camera and Internet access.
The new system is available at six institutions so far, comprising four hospitals, the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore. It will be rolled out to the rest later, and possibly even to the private sector.
This major shift builds on at least 12 years of tinkering with such technology but, even then, the authorities are proceeding with the utmost caution.
Video consultations are available for only a select group of patients who require certain specific services - for example, speech therapy or psychiatric counselling.
Nobody's first contact with a doctor will be on-screen.
It goes without saying that the same applies to those who require a proper physical examination. While many medical specialities may not fall under this criterion, plenty of others do.
“We can, theoretically, do the full consultation without having to touch the patient,” said Dr Kelvin Ng, a consultant at IMH's community psychiatry department. “In that way, psychiatry is uniquely suitable for video consultations.” Since November last year, Dr Ng and his colleagues have used video-call technology to speak with around 140 stable psychiatric patients from four residential homes.
