* It seems to be a success.
* “More than 90 physicians from various areas such as radiology, neurology, psychiatry have seen more than 11,000 patients through the telemedicine program.” (Jessup, 134)
* Patients suffering from sever cases who should not be traveling can benefit from the program. Also, the average cost of rural patients’ visits has been greatly reduced ($500 down to about $100). It can also reduce some healthcare disparities in remote location.
* The network is protected against fibre cuts and laser failures, and has the abilty to self heal against failure within 15 milliseconds. The network delivers information over 10 to 12 mbps of bandwidth. It is also good because patients in rural area get access to care from specialists
* Despite this though, the case only gives us the positive aspects of the program and does not mention failure rate or risks of the surgery. One of the other limitations is that only simple or routine procedures can take place.
We do not think that healthcare can be entirely provided through a telemedicine network. The doctors can provide consultation online but they cannot do a proper physical examination of the patient such as, feeling for lumps like cancer, looking at a mole to see if it is cancerous. This is even truer for patients with rare conditions that are not easily diagnosed. They cannot perform complex or risky surgeries or procedures on patients by telemedicine. Also people who are obese or have special conditions may not be able to have surgery performed by a robot. There are also senses that the system lacks, the human factor, such as sense of touch an ...