“We don’t have specific rheumatologists providing care via kiosks, but we do believe that telehealth is moving beyond urgent care and toward providing a variety of specialty and chronic care management,” Ms. Anderson says.
Out of the many specialties in medicine, rheumatology is probably the least suited for telemedicine because of the hands-on aspect of the field, acknowledges Dr. Albert. However, there are ways to work around this inherent obstacle, he says.
“What I tell the telemedicine people is, ‘If we can do it in rheumatology, it can be done in any field,’” says Dr. Albert. “That’s true because we are such a physical exam-based discipline. That’s what’s lacking in telemedicine, but there are ways of doing it that overcome that barrier.”
Perhaps surprisingly, age is not a barrier to making telemedicine work in rheumatology, adds Dr. Albert. Many older patients take to the technology as easily as younger patients and feel comfortable talking with their doctor by video, he says.
If the kiosk model proves successful and efficient enough to move into specialty medical fields, the skill, knowledge and education of the person at the patient’s side, the individual operating the equipment, would be particularly important for rheumatologists, agrees Dr. Albert. For complicated cases, the patient will still have to be seen in the office, but for many patients, he says, some type of telemedicine is the wave of the future.
Catherine Kolonko is a medical writer based in Oregon.
