Telemedicine presents challenges for physicians
New research on telemedicine by Motti Haimi of Clalit Health Services at the Children's Health Center in Haifa, Israel, and published in Pediatric Research has found that physicians in a paediatric telemedicine service frequently face difficulties and challenges.
New research on telemedicine by Motti Haimi of Clalit Health Services at the Children's Health Center in Haifa, Israel, and published in Pediatric Research has found that physicians in a paediatric telemedicine service frequently face difficulties and challenges.
Difficulties were associated with diagnosing from a distance, treating unfamiliar patients, working alone and managing the volume and urgency of calls. Physicians also said that they faced technological hurdles and also moral conflict between the desire to meet parents' expectations and maintain standards of care.
Haimi and the team interviewed 15 randomly selected paediatricians who work for a paediatric telemedicine service in Israel that provides remote consultation for parents who need urgent medical advice about their children out of community clinic hours. They found that almost all physicians were worried about making a misdiagnosis or failing to assess the severity of a patient's illness because they were not physically able to examine the child, while other concerns included the fact that the doctors work at home alone and are unable to share thoughts with colleagues and the pressure physicians felt due to the urgency and volume of calls.
“To overcome the problems mentioned above, the physicians in this study used different strategies, including use of intuition, their experience, and taking protocols. They confessed that they used non-medical or contextual factors to make decisions in this high-stress environment,” Haimi said. “It is clear that doctors working in this paediatric telemedicine service should have special qualities and skills beyond those required from standard physicians. Decision makers should be aware of the challenges and special skills and training required to succeed in this setting.”