Outsourcing Health IT: Should Doctors Cut the Cord?

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=f9a79d36e6f10e72&cat=a1e025da3c02ca7c

In an era of rising costs and dwindling access to experts, IT is untethering doctors from patients' physical presence. Already, health care organizations are turning to distant practitioners to interpret radiographs and even to monitor intensive care units.

Such practices are not unique opportunities in niche markets, said Robert Wachter, a medical-safety expert at UCSF Medical Center, but the "first salvos" in an escalating trend.

Many tasks no longer need to be performed by a highly trained expert in the same room, or even in the same country, as a patient.

"IT was built to facilitate the ability of existing providers to do their work better and faster," Wachter said. But once the technology to record, store, and send digital images became commonplace, it revealed unanticipated applications.

more...

Its being done already...

[MadMaddie]

1. At what point does the outsourcing end....

this is dangerous....

[OhioChick]

2. You're absolutely right. n/t

[cantstandbush]

3. I am waiting for true service minded Drs. to pull together a system on

their own to really serve the underserved with excellent health care. Are there any takers out there among DUers?