Telemedicine on the Cheap

One evening recently, Kristi Moore was worried that her asthmatic daughter had strep throat, and she wanted a doctor’s opinion. So she grabbed her iSight camera and a flashlight, got her daughter to open her mouth wide and sent live video of her throat over the internet to an on-call doctor she had found online.

After looking at the images, the doctor decided that the young girl was suffering from a harmless postnasal drip, and she only needed some allergy medication.

Moore and her family, who live in Woodstock, Georgia, are pilot participants in a new program from MyMD, an online concierge medical service that offers access to on-call doctors 24 hours a day.

In the past, the company’s doctors had talked with patients over the phone, but now MyMD is giving 1,000 of its top member doctors iBooks and iSight cameras, hoping they will be able to do some of their consulting via video conference.

By Daniel Terdiman

Full Story: http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66728,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4