At the Telemedicine conference in Tromsø this year, an interesting paper was presented. Meeting your doctor using a webcam and an LCD screen is no rocket science however, the requirements of privacy and integration are critical.
Being able to meet my doctor this way would save me a lot of time -- 45 mins to be exact; which is the time I have to spend to make the detour to visit him. If I could upload my bloodtest results before I met him, it would have saved me even more time. But then again, updating my Electronic Medical Record (EPJ in Norwegian) calls for robust and flexible privacy and integration solutions. I think this is a solution that should be made available to the public. The challenge is getting my local politician to push the case and getting others to push him too.
Microsoft's Global Healthcare director Bill Crounse visited the telemedicine conference and posted this article that echoes my sentiments -- Norway can be a test bed for digital health and well-being.
While writing this post, I recalled my earlier post on using videoconferencing to improve the quality of life for digital nomads (like me). In such a scenario, I would like to be able to choose a channel on the remote and automatically be connected to my parents' TV and be able to see them and talk to them. This is the videophone we have been talking about for decades. Only thing is it is not one device, rather it is a collection of independent devices brought together by a service -- a service that a well-being service provider will offer. I hope fellow baby-boomers will be just as impatient for such solutions. After all, I would like to digitally meet my children whereever we are.
The death of distance as Frances Cairncross put it is going to be very real.
And today, for us in the northern hemisphere, the days start getting shorter. Have a great summer!!
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