House Call Medicine's Return is a Direct Result of the Integration of Technology into Health Care, Says Dr. Michael Farzam of House Call Doctor Los Angeles
The Los Angeles-based internist agrees with a recent op-ed that high-tech has had an enormous impact on 21st century health care, but adds that one of its most important impacts is that it's actually made house calls more viable than ever.
LOS ANGELES, July 6, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A July 2 op-ed in SBJ argues that the integration of high technology into healthcare has led to a more user-friendly medical landscape which might have been impossible to imagine not very long ago. "Health care has come a long way from the days of house calls and doctors with black bags," says writer Scott Rogers. Dr. Michael Farzam of House Call Doctor Los Angeles says that, while Rogers is correct overall, technology has actually spurred a revival in house call medicine.
Dr. Farzam notes that there has been a boom in the number of working house call doctors nationwide, primarily because of the rise of highly portable medical and communications technology. He adds that house call medicine essentially became extinct during the last century largely due to the importance of advanced medical technology that was far from portable. For decades, therefore, it was often impossible to make a reliable diagnosis from a patient's home. In our present day era of miniaturization and speedy communications, however, house calls are not only as effective as doctor visits for both diagnosis and treatment in most cases, they are arguably superior, says Dr. Farzam.
Visiting a patient at home, says Dr. Farzam, offers a great many advantages over a traditional office visit. From the patient's point of view, there are obvious benefits in terms of convenience, reduction of stress, and overall wellbeing; there's nothing particularly beneficial about driving through stressful Los Angeles traffic and the sitting in a room full of sick people, he adds. In addition, visiting patients in their home environment can provide the doctor with information that would never be available in an office. Dr. Farzam notes some particularly dramatic examples in which doctors came to homes where patients were complaining of symptoms like nausea that didn't seem to have any cause, but the doctors were able to smell gas leaks that the patients hadn't been able to notice. The doctor also adds that, in a more ordinary way, visiting a patient's domicile can provide clues about all kinds of habits that could have a negative or positive effect on a patient -- a telltale cigar butt, for example.
Dr. Farzam says that, while all patients are different, they nearly always agree that being able to be seen where they are, rather than having to go into an office, is a tremendous improvement. To learn more about House Call Doctor Los Angeles readers can call 310-849-7991 or visit http://www.HouseCallDoctorLA.com.
SOURCE House Call Doctor Los Angeles
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