The future of medicine could depend on teleconsultations. To assess the feasibility of remote consultations, the Ministry of Health is launching an experiment in nine regions.
Patients with chronic or complex wounds (eg bedsores, leg ulcers or diabetic foot wounds) will be able to benefit from telemedicine consultations. The doctor’s expertise will be offered remotely from a medico-social structure or a health center “connected to a remote structure having an expert medical resource”, specifies the General Directorate of the Offer of Care (DGOS) in a press release.
The system should simplify the daily life of patients but also doctors who are not experts in wounds who will be able to contact their colleagues in this way.
The nine regions concerned are Alsace, Lower Normandy, Burgundy, Center, Upper Normandy, Languedoc-Roussillon, Martinique, Pays de la Loire and Picardy.
A medical practice of the future
The experiment was approved by the social security financing law. Several hundred medical procedures should be performed by teleconsultation. The device should then be extended to all of France if the results are conclusive.
France is betting on telemedicine in several ways. She sees it as a way to solve the problems of access to care, to reduce the mobility of elderly or disabled patients, but also to fight against medical deserts. It is also a question of limiting the expenses of the health insurance.
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