CNBC.com (November 22, 2011) — The house call is back...with a high-tech spin.
In a bid to accommodate the aging population and the increasingly hectic lifestyles of their patients, physicians are embracing a broad spectrum of Web-based software solutions that are bringing healthcare services into the home.
From real time videoconferencing to secure online chats, telehealth is not only changing the way care gets delivered, but helping to improve medical outcomes by making care more accessible to patients who lack easy access, according to Ronald Dixon, a practicing general internist and director of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, CIMIT, in Boston.
Dixon says all ten doctors in his practice are currently testing the software as part of the Virtual Practice Pilot program at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is studying the effectiveness of live office visits versus videoconferencing patient encounters.
