No Appointment, No Problem

The office visit may slowly be going the way of the housecall.

In 2014, health technologies, including wearable health monitors, mobile apps to manage chronic disease, and virtual appointments are helping consumers make their healthcare more accessible and convenient. Patients will be able to save hours out of their day by avoiding waiting rooms, and doctors will be able to schedule assessments with more flexibility.

As demand for health care grows with new insurance enrollees, the industry is looking for agile ways for doctors’ offices to respond. Virtual appointments are how some are addressing the issue, especially since reassurance care–doctor visits where concerned patients are told there’s nothing wrong–accounts for a significant portion of physician visits, even while the tests that result from reassurance visits can lead to false positives. Videoconferencing and telemonitoring of vital signs lead to a greater acuity in home health care, and can preempt unnecessary tests.

Nothing is more important than feeling confident in the health of you or your loved ones. So we understand that the idea of turning a doctor’s stethoscope into an iPhone, or a medical history into app data, creates confidence issues. You’re not just losing out on muzak and old magazines if you skip your annual physical, and we’re not suggesting you skip it.

But mobile apps for monitoring health will increase patient health awareness and inevitably
prompt those who use them to make smarter, healthier choices. Meanwhile, devices like the Omegawave Personal, which uses EKG to track the heart’s electrical activity, are part of an industry trend in making more sophisticated consumer health wearables. Pairing more health-empowered patients with doctors who can make sense of biometric data from wearable monitors will lead to knowledgeable care that doesn’t sacrifice convenience.

Additionally, electronic records enable physicians to share patient data, avoiding duplicate tests, which save the doctor time and the patient money. Digital records give both doctors and patients the ability to look at medical records outside of a patient visit, which helps educate patients and allows physicians to use data more quickly when fielding patient calls or emails. Medical data is also being used by firms like Benovate to accurately calibrate a person’s health to the point of predicting possible problems.

Obviously, virtual care isn’t a panacea–in the atmosphere of the NSA controversy and the Target credit data theft, there are security considerations. With more and more healthcare being moved from doctors’ offices to primary care clinics run by Walgreens and Walmart, consumers using retail healthcare may face greater chance of information exposure, making some think twice.

Still, for the vast majority of patients, we think the promise of more patient-empowered care driven by technology will benefit both physicians and patients in both the short and long term.