Can Streaming Video Provide a Cure for the Healthcare Crisis?

It doesn’t sound like it should work, seeing a mental health expert via video, but it does. 远程医疗——人们可以实时使用的想法, two-way video chats to interact with doctors—isn’t new, but the usual take is that it’s used by people in rural locations who don’t have access to a local general physician. One program is pushing the idea in new and surprising directions: UPIC健康 is running a trial that uses video to connect at-risk patients with mental health professionals.

心理健康视频会议? Isn’t there a huge barrier in the coldness of the video screen? Isn’t talking with someone about serious issues hard enough in person?

其实,说 玛丽·塔克，UPIC健康公司的CEO (右)，总部设在弗吉尼亚州尚蒂伊., online sessions have already proven to have some serious advantages. 一方面, young adults are far more likely to be comfortable with on-screen communication, so telemedicine isn’t automatically a turn-off for them. And while a certain amount of bravery is needed to turn on a webcam and talk to a stranger, that’s often easier than parking in front of a clinic and walking in the front door.

UPIC已经提供电话咨询, 以及面对面交流的额外维度, 即使是在网上, 已经被证明是强大的. 它在眼睛里. People talking face to face can look each other in the eye, and for people suffering through the most traumatic events, 这是强大的.

“看着有同理心的看护者的眼睛, 对我们来说, was the missing piece in those real-time communications,塔克说。. “我的意思是，我会尽快更换手机.”

The video system UPIC works with offers one other advantage that few video meeting systems have: Patients can remain anonymous and still meet with the same counselor in later sessions. “这是非常强大的东西，”塔克说.

除了在病人身上测试视频系统, UPIC is testing it for in-house communications 也. Employees aren’t nearly as comfortable with it as the patients are, Tucker says.

一触即止

The video system UPIC is testing is a white label solution created by 一键视频聊天在德克萨斯州的奥斯汀. For One Touch, this is simply a new extension of a product it’s offered for some time. 事实上, 这是One Touch系统的第九个垂直方向, 遵循招聘和法律, 在其他垂直领域中. The company already offered its system for government and 金融 clients, 也, so while a medical system needs strong security thanks to HIPPA regulations, both government and finance sec tors have stronger security needs.

“每个人都担心HIPPA这个词, but when you actually look into the guidelines for security, 金融, because you’re dealing with socials and credit card and things like that, 我觉得这有点冒险,” Carrie Chitsey Wells, One Touch的首席运营官 (右). “We had to make some changes from a security standpoint on our side. 这对我们来说并不是一种延伸.”

One Touch built its video solution in-house and entirely from scratch. 它建立了一个实时的点对点连接, 可以在台式机和便携式设备上使用, 使用WebRTC和本地视频进行流媒体.

A strength of the One Touch system is that it’s able to route calls to multiple possible caregivers. 幕后故事, 该系统与医生网络相连, 临床服务提供商, 管理员, 或者其他接电话的人. The system routes video calls to the next available expert. For mental health issues, especially, it’s important that callers don’t have to wait long. Immediately following a call, the system solicits feedback from both parties. 调查是由客户配置的, 但在医学领域, 他们通常会问病人的经历如何, 他们会推荐这种体验吗, 它是否消除了亲自拜访的需要. Wells says the company gets an 80 percent completion rate on these surveys.

One Touch decided to enter the medical field about 12 months ago, but only after getting multiple requests from medical companies that wanted to use the system for its video routing capability.

“Let’s say you’re a hospital and you have multiple locations,” Wells says. “Let’s say you have three hospital campuses and you’ve got doctors in multiple locations or working from their own practice or working at home.” One Touch lets patients go to a hospital website to find a specialist, 比如心脏病医生, and scan across all of the hospital’s locations regardless of geography. Practitioners, wherever they happen to be—even at home— can take video calls instantly.

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