Despite predicting a range of new computer applications to help pathologists diagnose and forecast the progress of diseases, human analysis will not be eliminated in the foreseeable future, says Schwartz. ‘I am optimistic that we will continue to have extraordinarily well-trained physicians to make sure the technology makes sense. No technology is foolproof, and when you’re talking about people’s health and lives, you are still going to have to have somebody to make sure all the results fit into what you’re seeing from the patient.’
Ease of access
Some developments in e-health are just a matter of adapting existing technologies for use in a healthcare setting. In Australia, for example, the government has announced the introduction of personally controlled electronic health records and is working towards electronic prescribing and dispensing of medicines, which should increase the time healthcare professionals can spend with patients.
‘When you’re looking at what technology we should be encouraging, you’re saying: what do the majority of patients want that can enhance what we know and delivers the best quality of healthcare for the best cost?’ says general practitioner Grant Ingrams, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP IT committee. This doesn’t have to be high tech. ‘I think telephone consultations and email will become more common, but in addition to normal consultations – which have gone up by a third over the last 10 years and continue to rise. So we’ve got to look at how to be more efficient, and these things might help,’ explains Ingrams.
He finds email particularly useful, if he needs patients to record regular measurements of things, like blood sugar levels, then send them to him for review. ‘It’s a fantastic way of doing it because it means they haven’t got to wait for me to have an appointment free to talk to them,’ says Ingrams.
One feature of all these advances is the human intervention required, so the idea of being cured by a ‘virtual doctor’ is likely to remain science-fiction for some time. ‘I still need to read and interpret any information, and the majority of patients prefer to see a doctor above any other type of service,’ concludes Ingrams.
© IET. Reproduced with permission.