DOCTOR YOURSELF
... AND LIVE LONGER !
Remember when doctors made house calls? Well, Web Life people do much of their own doctoring – at home. And they will live much longer and save much time and money by doing so.
The Baby Boom trend toward a healthier lifestyle, together with new tele-medicine gadgetry, sees increasing numbers of people doing their own doctoring at home. That saves patients lots of time, and even some money on fewer or cheaper prescriptions.
Millions of people also buy many of their health supplement needs online, again saving time and money. And if they have their own business, they actually make a profit on what they buy for their own health and nutrition. People are increasingly self-reliant in maintaining their physical and mental well-being. The better-informed people are, they usually make better lifestyle decisions and play a much more active role in their healthcare.
The Webolution thus rewrites the implicit doctor-patient contract. Many patients simply find more help in cyberspace than in their own doctor’s office. "Web-informed" patients – not their doctors – will drive healthcare. In turn, electronic house calls will become an everyday part of a Web Life. Seeking control over our health, we will routinely go online, not only to download health info but to get diagnoses from online experts, review our own charts, and track our own treatment plans.
As people demand more time and convenience, treat-yourself-at-home medical devices are proliferating. Here are just three examples:
• Asthma patients can use a pocket-size airway monitor that records breathing. Hooked to a phone line, it sends data to a computer and, within minutes, a report is sent to the doctor.
• Diabetics can monitor their blood-sugar readings online. They prick a finger, squeeze a tiny drop of blood onto a glucose meter, and zap the result to their doctor.
• Heart patients can send pacemaker data over the Web to doctors. Even those with defibrillators or other implants can send real-time data over the Web to cardiologists — even while the patient is asleep. Caregivers can even reprogram an implant by sending directions over the Web, straight to the device! How’s that for being wired?
External defibrillators are being set up in public places (alongside fire extinguishers in malls, airports, sports stadiums) for use by co-workers, travelers and passersby. The device is fool-proof – it won’t shock normal-rhythm hearts – and is far easier than trying CPR. It has simple visual and audible cues to guide the rescuer through the first crucial minutes. Patients thus get attention much faster than waiting for paramedics.
For the rest of us, an online medicine cabinet uses face-recognition to identify each household member and their special needs. Sensors on prescription bottles help the cabinet to identify each drug so it can alert patients if they take the wrong bottle – or the right bottle at the wrong time. The cabinet also can monitor vital signs, chart them, and transmit the data to the doctor over the Web. And, before a prescription gets used up, the cabinet automatically refills it online – for immediate home delivery of course.
Eventually, compact but sophisticated diagnostic and clinical lab stations will be commonplace – right inside our homes and across our communities. In turn, fewer of us will have to sit around in germ-ridden waiting rooms, exposed to contagious illnesses, coughs and sneezes.
And that has to be a major Web Lifestyle blessing!
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