Web-Based Virtual House Calls
Paul
Grundy,
MD, MPH, IBM Well-Being Director
IBM Global Well Being Services
and Health Benefits
With its new Physician webVisits service, CIGNA will enable some of its members to enjoy a kind of "virtual house call" from doctors for non-urgent health issues via www.myCIGNA.com.
Select CIGNA member in California will be able to get prescription refills online, view lab results and schedule appointments. They'll also be able to communicate with their doctors via an interactive interview process that will cover 145 medical symptoms that don't require urgent care.
The interactive consultation, developed by application service provider Relay Health,is designed to summarize a patient's input so that a doctor can quickly digest the information and then choose the appropriate level of response. Which is to say, this virtual house call won't be patients and doctors directly chatting or exchanging emails, but a kind of intermediate way to serve both parties.
What is interesting about this toe-dip into connecting patients and physicians is that the information exchange is more secure than conventional email or online messaging, but also that according to RelayHealth, it can interoperate with a patient's electronic health record, so that a doctor wouldn't have to pull a paper chart to review the patient's history.
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