January 15, 2007
Virtual Office Visits
You woke up not feeling well but don't wish to take time off from work to drive to your doctor's office to wait for over an hour to see him for 10 minutes. Maybe you can just email him and have a virtual visit?
A new 'proof of concept' pilot project funded by the American Academy of Family Physicians' (AAFP) called TransforMED offers this "house call of the future." It is just one of the new ways of practicing medicine in 36 medical offices across the country that are participating in a two-year experiment to revive the family doctor with a 21st-century update.
In addition to virtual office visits, patients will get old-fashioned customer service such as same-day scheduling even for checkups and group support sessions for people with chronic diseases. The purpose is to make practices more patient-centered and physician-friendly.
Skyrocketing medical costs and a lack of new family physicians are problems that the $8 million American Academy of Family Physicians' TransforMED project hopes to cure. Traditional physician offices may leave 20 percent of appointment slots free for same-day appointments. These practices leave 60 percent open.
Another approach is group visits for chronic disease management. For example, a group of eight to 10 people with diabetes may attend a session on a disease topic, like eye or foot care, and then have labs taken and meet briefly with the physician.Group visits can dramatically improve patient health in part because they like to talk to and learn from one another about what works in living with the disease.
Another component of the program is software that enables the doctor to have access to the latest information about treating an illness rather than having to rely on memory or outdated training.
Other software enables doctors to track patient care through insurance claims data, including whether prescriptions being filled and visits to other physicians, for more complete continuity of care.
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