Dr Lance O'Sullivan in Tauranga Tomorrow

Tomorrow in Tauranga I’m looking forward to hearing Dr Lance O’Sullivan explain his new I-moko service allowing assessment of patients at a distance using video. I’ve been put onto a panel to lead the discussion afterwards. It’s a public event at 3pm at the ASB Arena.

Lance is an oasis of inspiration when it comes to the re-engineering of health services. Sadly he is one of few.

It beggars belief that decades after most Kiwi households started using Skype, the health sector still hasn’t even started to adapt its business model to pick up the opportunities of the digital age.

Health faces massive challenges – aging population, increasing poverty, aging workforce, advancing medical science, and ever-increasing expectations that as we age the system will keep us alive just about indefinitely.

Yet we still see the doctor in exactly the way we used to in my childhood – face-to-face, one-on-one, irrespective of the severity of the issue and without any form of triage. That's dumb!

Having worked extensively in health video, I have heard every conceivable excuse (and some utterly inconceivable) why video is not appropriate in a health setting. Most have come from entrenched interests who should know better.

The range of opportunities that video communications brings to health is massive. Its been proven over and over. But it just doesn’t happen. A fundamental change is decades overdue.

I’ll post again after the event tomorrow.