Promotion of medical equity by internet diagnosis and treatment

Although registration in hospital by way of Internet has become the choice of many citizens, can patients receive diagnosis by Internet? Impossible task at least for now since even recently the speaker for National Health and Family Planning Commission has said that, medical diagnosis and treatment related to Internet are never allowed with consultation related to health as an exception.

Why can not Internet inquiry and diagnosis be conducted? The explanation by the authority is that to ensure the quality and safety of remote medical care. If the remote medical care is opened, then organization and doctors that are not possessed with relevant qualifications will conduct relevant services. Therefore, to protect the rights and interests of patients, limitations must be conducted. Up till now, only such 5 regions as Ningxia and Yunnan are allowed by the government to conduct trial policies and only PLA General Hospital, PUMCH and China-Japan Friendship Hospital have the remote diagnosis qualifications.

In my opinion, the worries of the authority may go a little bit far. Undoubtedly, as a highly regulated industry, those medical organizations and institutions need relevant qualifications in order to carry out specific diagnosis and treatment activities, but it can never become a preventive reason for conducting Internet diagnosis and treatment because online diagnosis has behaviors that transcend qualifications, then so do offline counterparts. The point of the problem does not lie in the possession of relevant qualifications, but in the main body of diagnosis-- whether it is medical institutions or medical practitioner, relevant info has to be revealed. With comparison of info of the counterparts medical institutions and doctors can be conducted, then remote diagnosis is not a difficult thing.

In fact, conducting remote diagnosis does not have barriers in law for the reason that the current regulations have not forbidden Internet practice by saying that medical practitioners should have fixed places, types and scope.

The most crucial problem involved in remote diagnosis and treatment is the definition of outpatient services. In the times of pre-Internet, patients and doctors need to be in the same physical space. Yet with the development of the Internet, the scope of outpatient services may change accordingly. Usually, doctors with a long distance, by way of online diagnosis, are more familiar with the conditions of patients than face-to-face one, therefore more possible to provide targeted medical plans.

From the perspective of foreign practices, remote medical services are mainly divided into 2 modes of online medical care and mobile health services. The former mainly provide medical services by way of such Internet communication ways as video so that patients need not go out of their homes. Although currently, online medical care is mostly used in chronic disease monitoring by long distance, paroxysmal disease treatment, mildly acute disease treatment, catching a cold, etc. and healthcare consultations, in the foreseeable future, treatment and data analysis of major illnesses such as treating of acute diseases, preliminary and surgery nursing, psychological consultations, treating of cancers can also be utilized in remote diagnosis.

It has been said that in America and Canada, practising physicians’ diagnosis and treatment times in 2014 have reached 600 million times with 75 million of them have been realized through long-distance technologies with the market value possible to reach 50 to 60 billion dollars. Currently, considering the unbalanced medical resources, carrying out remote diagnosis have more significance which can enable those far from medical resources to enjoy more convenient and better diagnosis services, realizing fairness by overcoming geographical barriers. Seen from this perspective, carrying out remote medical care is more important than severe restriction.

Published in Beijing News | 2015-4-21