La #télémédecine par #Internet se développe rapidement en #Chine
The internet hospital: an emerging innovation in China - The Lancet Global Health
▻http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00042-X/fulltext
The internet enables people to overcome geographical obstacles to health-care access. Patients just need to visit their community health centre, village clinic, or a pharmacy nearby to obtain a consultancy and diagnosis from skilled doctors based in big cities. Doctors from the internet hospital can spend 10 min or more to communicate with each patient, whereas a clinic consultancy at a top-level hospital normally lasts only a few minutes.4 The satisfaction score is high according to the patients’ online assessment after the consultancy.5 Besides, it is much cheaper than outpatient costs for traditional hospital visits. The present cost of drugs of a prescription from the internet hospital is about ¥60 on average, only a quarter of the average cost of drugs from a top-level hospital.6
The internet hospital programme is still in the exploratory stage, and many problems remain to be solved, such as the incorporation of internet medical services into health insurance programmes, surveillance and quality control, the applicability of internet diagnoses for some diseases, possible medical disputes, and long-term return on investment. Nevertheless, this programme is developing at a substantial speed in China.