ReJoycetherapy

I recently heard a health care policy maker say that, “The Western World is drowning in health care costs.” He’s right: according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the burden of US health care costs rose by 9.9% in 2008 and is forecast to rise 9.2% and 9.0% in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The story is similar in a single-payer system, like that in Canada, where 17% of the government’s entire annual revenue is spent on health care.

Interestingly, the Canadian government pays for about 70% of the country’s health care costs whereas the US government pays around 40%.

With that in mind, what is the Virtual Clinic, what role does the virtual clinic play, and who benefits?

The Virtual Clinic

The pure Virtual Clinic is a clinic with little-to-no office space or equipment, outsourced support staff (filing, book-keeping, etc.), offering targeted services to a specific market. Such clinics offer services to a clientele in their own homes, or a remote care facility, using the Internet as a delivery mechanism.

Although no purely virtual clinics currently exist, hybrids are beginning to emerge, and the trend is pointing heavily in their favor. Physicians in Hawaii, for example, are already offering at-home family medical services over the Internet using online software from a variety of different vendors.

Other popular examples include the following:
- online speech pathology
- online psychiatry
- Internet-supervised home-based rehabilitation

What role does the virtual clinic play?

As the population ages, and after people have accidents, transportation to a doctor’s office, or care facility becomes increasingly more difficult and time-consuming. The clinic itself requires space for patients and practitioners, a reception area and waiting room, as well as parking space, maintenance staff, etc. Clinics of any type are expensive to set up and maintain.

In many cases, clinics offer a wide range of services that require the burden of high operational overhead, as mentioned above.

The virtual clinic offers clinicians the opportunity to eliminate these overheads and to specialize in one or two areas of practice, such as upper extremity exercise and rehab.

So, what’s the bottom line?
1. a huge reduction in costs
2. better service quality
3. increased flexibility for patient and practitioner alike

Who benefits from a virtual clinic?

Despite wildly different health care systems, government involvement in health care in both Canada and the USA is massive: Canada’s government pays 70% of health care costs, whereas the government of the United States pays a little more than 40% (according to each government’s respective 2009 budgets).

In a single-payer system, like that in Canada, clinics are incentivized to service as few people as possible, as quickly as possible.

In a private/public system, like that in the USA, clinics are incentivized to fill beds, and service as many patients as possible, each for as long as that patient’s insurance policy will allow.

Despite their differences, the virtual clinic is ideal for both systems.

In Canada, the clinic dramatically reduces per-patient expenses for the most common treatments, maximizing efficiency. In the USA, the clinic dramatically reduces per-patient expenses for the most common treatments, maximizing profits.

Of course, the virtual clinic is a long way from replacing the conventional clinic entirely, but with new affordable equipment and Internet-based delivery software, a large percentage of conventional clinical activities can finally be moved out of the clinic, along with their hefty costs.