As we deal with COVID the evolution of remote healthcare visits to your MD looms more important. Ask yourself: what information does an in-person MD visit provide that could not be handled remotely? And one more issue: assuming your entire health history was available in an electronic file and a thoroughly complete health questionnaire was presented to you, why could a computer not aid in the diagnosis of any set of symptoms you experience? We’re not saying “replace the doctor”; we are saying “with a complete health history and a full list of symptoms, why can’t you learn more about potential diagnoses before simply going to the doctor (in-person or remotely) and starting from scratch?” A computer program will be 100% complete in ALL possible diagnosis predictions but some doctors may not consider some of the ailments you could be susceptible to. Over 50 years ago two doctors, Vickery and Fries, co-authored a book “Take Care of Yourself”. In this book they used yes-no answers diagrams to help patients to isolate and pinpoint potential issues and to tell them when it was important to have a professional MD follow up. Now that we have computer-assistance capability–this is a no-brainer. And when you consider the pressure building for a National Healthcare Plan, his may be the ONLY way to accomplish a full range of care for everyone. The efficiency and effectiveness of this approach seems critical to our future as care gets more prohibitively expensive.
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