#4

Consider the costs of running a primary care clinic in a remote area. The cost of having an office, medical tools, doctors, and nurses is extraordinarily high. Secondly, some residents who like in more remote areas may not have access to such facilities for several hundred miles. How can the United States bring health care closer to every corner of the country, but still keep the cost low?

Every time I want to see my friends back home face to face, I cannot just hop on a plan and travel five hundred miles north. So whenever I want to have a conversation with them, I simply turn on my computer and use Skype.

If someone needs to consult a health care professional, but are not within driving distance, what should they do? A new trend in healthcare is being treated via television screens. Instead of driving to a doctors office, a makeshift doctors office is made available, but without a doctor. Instead, the doctor may be situated hundreds of miles away, but can diagnose, give advice, and look at the patient all through a live video stream.

Will “medical-Skyping” improve healthcare, or is it a “band-aid solution”? I think there is no substitute for being able to go to a doctor in person, but if it is impossible to see a doctor nearby, this may be the next best solution. Patients can be seen right away instead of waiting hours on end in hospital emergency rooms, and can be followed up more often if they have a chronic illness.

Setting up a video chat system would be much less costly than having a complete clinic. If a small rural town has fewer than 2000 residents, it may be more cost efficient to have an office with a doctor available on call through video chat.

Who knew video chat would help reduce health care costs?