Recently, one of my chiro patients told me she doesn't like her family physician so has been getting her medical advice from an online doctor. Have no idea what this is about, but will have to question her more about it.

There is never a good way to deliver that type of news. I am surprised there is not an app to do this with dignity....

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

+1. Think of the subtle-but-classy marketing tie-ins for Android and iPhone -- flowers, funeral homes, attorneys... The pop-up ad possibilities are limitless.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

You must have linked the wrong story. The one you linked to is about a Dr. telling a patient via video link that he is going to die.

Sounds like it was a small hospital with no Dr. on staff in the evenings which is when the test results came back. Looks like the hospital has said it needs to look into a more compassionate solution to this type of situation and it can always improve on care.

Not sure there is much of a story here.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

My insurance BCBS offers online Dr. Visits. convinced my kid to use one when she was in college cause I thought she needed to go to the ER. The Dr told her go to the ER, lol. Anyhow she said it was fine they did video chat the Dr could see her swollen leg and ankle.

I read my MRI results online that told me I had a Tumor in my head... Didn't really bother me, better to know then wait another day for the dr to read another day to get an appt. his office, instead I called the next day, told them I got the results and can then send the needed prescription to the local pharm.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

I'd go one step further. It sounds like everyone already knew he was going to die soon. This was just telling him it was close enough that he shouldn't return home. The article makes it sound like this was a big "reveal". I'm pretty skeptical that it was, having dealt with someone with late-stage COPD. This is not a disease where you hold out hope for some magical recovery. E.g. like you can with cancers that can sometimes go into sudden remission

the robot rolling in part is the clickbait.

It's like the Dalek coming round the corner shouting 'exterminate'. At least that's what people want to think.

Changing the subject line to reflect how I feel about it.

He can go cry a river in his Porsche.

What a waste of resources. Message could have been delivered much more efficiently via text message.

We have that now in our area. The gov't rolled out telemedicine initially so that pts would not have to travel from rural areas to the big city to see a specialist for followup. It was a good idea and it worked well. It wasn't used for acute illness. But in typical bonehead gov't fashion they allowed family doctors to set up walk in style clinic service in the same manner.

So the doc sits in Toronto at home and the pt goes to a clinic and sees a doc through a TV screen. A nurse helps out. The problem is the video doc sees easy quick stuff and bills the gov't big fees. Complicated stuff goes to local family doctor and takes more time. I saw a kid the other day diagnosed with earwax at one of these clinics so they sent the kid to me to get the wax out. Getting the wax out of squirmy 2 year old ears is a lot of fun.

The net result is it undermines the local docs income and he/she is even less likely to live in and service rural area.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Yeah, I think they are using an incredibly loose definition of robot.

I was kinda thinking along the same lines. The story talks about the guy being seen by a doctor physically in the am and this happening in the pm. One would think the am doc could have broke the news are maybe already did. What was interesting was that this hospital was covering its critical care unit by telemedicine. One would think that if a hospital in California was small enough that they couldn't cover their critical care unit with live doctors it might be wise just to close the critical care unit.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot