Online Health Care

This was a hard one to get through. Very boring. I'm also not sure what in the world the last article was doing in the mix. i guess religion is a kind of 'mental health' issue?? Maybe a mistake.

I read this line in the Shneiderman chapter, "The goal would be that if you are brought to an emergency room anywhere in the world, within 15 seconds, your patient history is on the screen in the local language." Has this dude ever been to the emergency room?
If you don't know what I mean, just recall the news this week of the woman who died on the emergency room floor. see article Perhaps we should fix whatever problem allowed that to happen before we start adding whistles and bells.

I think I'm being grumpy... I mean, maybe the high tech medical record access would have helped the hospital move faster and be less bureaucratic in general and then people would be seen faster. I guess then everyone would be less overworked and stressed and they could feel empathy for someone who is coughing up blood right in front of them. They would stop working for a minute and care that a person is scared and suffering. I guess I'd like that to be the root of the problem and the solution to be as simple as standardizing on line medical records. I'm not sure if that's the case though.

(What a strange coincidence. As I was writing my blog, a friend called to tell me that she has a brain tumor. I am actually having a terrible time not giving up on writing the blog so that I can go research the procedure she's scheduled for and the doctors who will be performing it. I'm actually wondering what people did before - I suppose I would go to the library and look it up there. But, why would I do that when I can just research from home?)

Anyway. The concept of getting actual medical attention on line from home relates closely to the communication topic in my mind. When we read about communication, we saw a general pattern that communication on line was sort of a hybrid between the old ways of oration and the newer ways of print. I see the medical topic as having a similar pattern. Online health care is a hybrid between the old ways of house calls and private practice care versus the new ways of Insurance managed health [who] care[s]"

I wonder what the insurance companies think about online 'house calls'
Do you have to pay for 'chat' or email with your doctor and if you do is it covered by the insurance company? can you use paypal to pay your co-pay?! Man, I would love it if I could just send my symptoms to my doctor and get some darn antibiotics when I need them. I never ever ever go to the doctor unless I really think I will do permanent damage for not going. Or if I'm having a baby! I think it would be wonderful if we could get referrals from our primary care physician by sending an email or submitting a request on line.

I wonder what other countries are doing as far as on line house calls. If it wasn't 4:30 and I wasn't super busy and really cramming to get this blog done, then I would probably research that more. I did find an interesting resource that might give me some answers to both of these questions here

I feel like I just wrote a really lame blog.