Virtual Medical Visits

NEW YORK – “Telemedicine has the potential to improve quality of care by allowing clinicians in one ‘control center’ to monitor, consult and even care for and perform procedures on patients in multiple locations,” Doctor and Patient columnist Pauline Chen writes. “A rural primary care practitioner who sees a patient with a rare skin lesion, for example, can get expert consultation from a dermatologist at a center hundreds of miles away.”

The Times continues, “But despite its promise, telemedicine has failed to take hold in the same way that other, newer, technologies have. Not because of technical challenges, expense or insufficient need. On the contrary, the most daunting obstacle to date has been a deeply entrenched resistance on the part of providers”