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Mumbai: People who sent an SMS to orthopaedic surgeon Sanjay Agarwala last week got an instant reply about him being away on an US trip and with an alternative number to call during emergencies.
    Welcome to the generation of wired doctors. They don’t flinch away from giving personal phone numbers or personal email IDs. And they use technology to ‘connect’ with patients in different ways. Dr Aniruddha Malpani, who has uploaded on his website a book he wrote on infertility many years back, has added a comic version of the same book. “As no printing costs are involved, we can use various languages for the comic book,’’ he says. Psychiatrist Harish Shetty uses e-groups and SMSes to stay in touch with patients. Incidentally, the American Board of Family Practice conducted a study along with the Penn State College of Medicine in 2005, dividing patients among two groups on the basis of email communication. “Patient satisfaction significantly increased in the email group compared with the other groups in the areas of convenience and the amount of time spent contacting their physician,’’ the study reported.
    In the age of Google, when patients first go to the search page to diagnose their symptoms before meeting a doctor, it’s but natural that the doctor uses modern methods to enhance patientdoctor relationship, says Dr Malpani. As paediatrician Dr Sameer Dalwai says, “If a patient is at the medical shop and is foxed about buying 125 mg or 250 mg bottle, it is definitely convenient for him or her to just call the doctor and verify. He need not, like in the past, come back with two bottles to the doctor.’’
    In fact, 2008 could well be remembered as the year when a number of electronic tools emerged to enhance the patient-doctor relationship. Internet search engine Google presented the personal health recorder (PHR) along, with Cleveland Clinic, to test whether a patient by merely recording his health parameters online could just get better attention and diagnosis from doctors. A Bangalore-based company, Yos Technologies, has devised a PHR for infertile couples and is fine-tuning a PHR for diabetic patients. “The PHR keeps a record of diagnostic tests and even gives reminders about the doctor’s next appointment. The idea is that doctors only need to look at the PHR to know how the patient has been faring,’’ said a Yos official.
    In another high-tech bridge between patients and doctor, tech major Intel last month unveiled a personal computer that can read a patient’s vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate and convey them to healthcare providers via the internet. In another marker of how technology in medical communication is becoming the norm, US insurance companies a few months ago started making payments to doctors for email consultations.
    But does high-tech communication really help patients? S Pazzari of BPL Mobile, which launched the doctor-on-call service last week,
is categorical that Mumbaikars need such a service as they have no time after work and household chores to attend to small health concerns. A dipstick survey they conducted before launching the service revealed that executives as much as retired senior citizens wouldn’t mind paying for the e-service. “Be it a cellphone call, SMS or an email, more avenues for communication means the patient has more confidence in his/her doctor being around,’’ said a doctor.
    However, there is a flipside. “Patients could get so used to this form of convenience medicine that they may forget that there is no substitute for a clinical examination,’’ said Dr Dalwai. Another doctor mentions how a doctor who was woken up at 3 am by the family concerned to give the patient an antacid tablet and bring him to the clinic next morning for an examination. “The patient suffered a massive heart attack at 7 am and passed away. And the doctor was later hauled up by the court for not practicising medicine as it should be and where it should be,’’ he said.

From The Times of India Report Dec 22, 2008

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