MyMD.com has a unique idea, medicine via email, IM, and video chat. 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. Since many Doctors are dropping their patients with minor issues, and many patients are waiting in long lines to see a Doctor for a few precious minutes, MyMD decided to try an online approach to diagnosis.
But now, MyMD is hoping to lead the way toward video conferencing as an integral part of such services, and because of the relatively low cost and high quality of cameras like Apple Computer’s iSight — around $130 — the company is hoping many of its customers will also be able to purchase them. “I have worked with a number of telemedicine trials with dedicated equipment that cost tens of thousands of dollars per workstation, but have never seen the quality of the Mac video conferencing, especially at such an incredibly low price,” said one doctor in the MyMD program.
Read the entire article at Wired.