Chapter 1: What is Virtual Medicine? (11.03.20)

What is meant by virtual medicine?

Let’s start this out at the top, virtual medicine, or virtual healthcare, means reimagining how medical care is conceived. It means using the world of digital communications to change the way physicians offer, and how patients engage in healthcare. It means moving beyond the perception of the static clinic and immersing ourselves in the cyber.

Building multisensory environments, allows new opportunities to improve patient care from the mundane to the truly miraculous. In one, instance virtual reality may be used to distract a child from scary medical exams or chemotherapy, and in others, “surprising health benefits” have been witnessed in “burn injuries, to stroke, to PTSD, to schizophrenia, to existential anxiety at the end of life.”

In a conference developed by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a deeper exploration of immersive and virtual therapeutics has created a center for understanding within the medical community. Within this professional gathering, “participants include clinicians using VR for patient care, patients exploring the benefits of VR as a complementary therapy, hospitals and clinics evaluating the health economics of starting a medical VR program, industry partners developing VR hardware and software solutions, journalists investigating the latest advances in medical VR, and investors seeking to learn the evidence and ROI for healthcare VR solutions.” In 2019, the event brought 430 registrants from 5 continents and 12 countries.

Virtual medicine is not just the virtual doctor visit we’ve heard about but so much more. In fact, its changing how we interact with medicine.

How do telehealth and virtual emergency rooms play into it?

Telehealth, as we hear the buzzword being used so often today, is the broader industry that includes telemedicine, using the phone or online means of diagnostics, checkups, etc. Telehealth then includes visits yes, but also includes the likes of “chronic condition management” too.

Allowing for healthcare at distance, each of these elements allow care to be extended beyond the office through digital communication. Popping up in hospitals around the country, this now extends to emergency treatment as well. As one sit puts it, “(y)ou will speak with an emergency medicine physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner with face-to-face technology using a secure computer or smartphone platform. Within the limitations of this visit, we can best guide you with home management or decide whether you do need to go to the Emergency Department or come to the hospital to be evaluated in person.” This not only includes a virtual visit but a full data entry system and a virtual waiting room too.

What does this mean for the future of medicine and more importantly our relationship with the industry?

Simply, put it means that our health is now digital. It means that as we seek out care it most likely will initiate with a digital connection and there for not only will we be able to gain the help we need at a distance, but our physical, bodily data will now be part of the stream. Digital streams of patient records and bodily vitals will now openly traverse the internet. Our data is at greater risk. But with greater risk, we gain a greater reward.

Distance health is incredibly important as are virtual environments. With the spread of infectious disease, as we see in the COVID era, the concern of the health and safety of healthcare workers too can be greatly increased if virtual engagement is the point of origin in healthcare as opposed to in-person visits.

While “the visit,” still has a role, it will now be virtualized. While it still requires time for adoption, the future is clear. Is the next step an AI provider?

And finally, what kinds of new tools are available to us as a result of this movement?

While we’ve covered several already, the tools available in these virtualized medical environments are many. In addition to escapist scenarios, very real dollars and sense tools are enabled as well. In the COVID era, real impacts have been seen using: online patient web portals, video chat, remote blood collection devices and kits, and new apps, and the extended use of private email.

Online portals may be nothing new to many of us, but the reach is now growing to small facilities in new localities around the world. These devices are direct enablers for patients seeking more engaged information including: “check(ing) lab results, update insurance information, and request prescription refills.”

With video calls, emails, and apps, many options are available and for the vid-variety include but are not limited to thera-LINK, VSee, Amazon Chime, Zoom, FaceTime, and Skype. However, warnings are growing on to the need to engage HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinic Health Act) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

Finally, by-mail sampling kits allow for the next extension for touchless sample collection. This obviously reduced exposure to the medical practitioner but puts a far greater onus upon the patient. In any case, several companies are moving in to make the systems possible. Mitra and LiveSmart are just a few of those expanding the opportunity.

With each of these tools, the relationship and the means are changing, it remains to be seen if the cost will as well.

While we are not sponsored by any of the above, we do find them fascinating and offer them here as fuel for our own independent explorations. For more Cyber-Fuel on Health, please check out our dedicated section on the subject.