WALL STREET JOURNAL: What will a typical doctor appointment be like with this approach?
DR. TOPOL: I hope it’s going to be a whole lot better than today, because the average appointment lasts seven minutes in the U.S. And usually the patient is waiting for an hour. So it’s a very inefficient system.
With digital tools, if you’re seeing someone who has high blood pressure and blood-sugar problems, a lot of the data that’s relevant could be sent through the Web before or during the visit. That’s different from today, when you and your doctor don’t have data available during the visit.
But the other thing to consider is that in the future, many office visits will not be in person; they will be “house calls” through Skype and FaceTime and other video links
Dr Eric Topol talks with Ron Winslow, Deputy Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal in New York, about the upheaval that’s coming as the digitization of health care meets the smartphone…
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