In the year 2000....

I learn the scariest crap in IDSc.



The "Did You Know 2.0" went from exciting and amazing to frightening in the blink of an eye. India, over 3 million college graduates a year, every one of them speaks English. Exciting. One in 8 couples met online. Amazing. Myspacetopia, the 8th largest country in the world? Frightening. Formulating the temperature from cricket clicks? Amazing. The World Community Grid? Amazing. VIP implanted computer chips? Frightening.

Web 2.0

I've been sick for the past few days and so, when I called my folks yesterday, the main topic covered was how horrible my voice sounded. The talk then turned to a recommendation to get myself seen, which I had already done. It was the first time (that I can remember, at least) that I had been to the doctor outside of Rochester, MN, or more specifically, Mayo Clinic. It was an uncomfortable feeling, something I wasn't used to. In my own opinion, a personal physician is something very important, someone you can open up to and feel totally comfortable with. You are familiar with their personality, and more importantly, assured of their competence. So what are the options for other people in my situation? I've been lucky enough to be relatively healthy my whole life, and so health care hasn't had to have been a huge priority in my life. There are many, however, whose lifestyle choices are dependent upon annual or bi-annual check-ups. Many of the individuals who come to Mayo Clinic are from out of town, and with the ever struggling economy, it is becoming more financially difficult to come to appointments. I spoke with my dad, who is a Cardiologist at Mayo, about this and he told me about a new virtual consult concept that they are beginning at Mayo to alleviate some of these problems. Mayo is beginning to experiment with long distance "face-to-face" patient visits. Patients with access to the required technological equipment can be "seen" by their primary physician at Mayo from the comfort of their own home, or from their local clinic. The way it was described to me was like a webcam-plus. There is even a way for doctors to perform physical examinations (although my dad had no idea how they were going to pull this off). This would free up more appointment times for Mayo's hospital staff and allow them to see more urgent cases. While yearly check-ups are important, in most cases, these individuals have a clean or at least stable bill of health. This virtual consult technology gives them the comfort of actually seeing their primary physician, and getting reassurance from them, while saving them the cost of flying/driving to Minnesota. At the same time, Mayo is able to treat more patients and take in more revenue. The only negative I could think of would be the effect this service will have on local clinics that will lose business to bigger clinics such as Mayo, John Hopkins, and Cleveland; clinics with the revenue to afford the appropriate technology. Regardless, its an amazing feature, and one that would not be available without the advancements in tech that were discussed in the Web 2.0 articles.