Phreesia - Changing the Patient Experience This is worth checking out ! " Phreesia installs Wireless enabled WebPads in the clinic's waiting areas. They provide everything the doctor needs, including the hardware and the wireless network. Their WebPads tie into their securely hosted Medical History application. Patients enter the cause of their visit and are prompted with a series of questions based on an elaborate decision tree. A report is then produced and sent to the physician with enough information to begin a focused patient interview, saving valuable physician time." Sounds cool - and instead of wasting their time being patient in the waiting room, patients can actually learn about their medical problems , since the computer can direct them to targetted websites ( based on their symptoms) which provide them with information which is relevant to their needs. And this is all free ! So what's the catch ? Read on...
All this is being sponsored by "Big Pharma" ! Thus, when patients input a description of their medical problem into the wireless laptop computer, based on their symptoms, the laptop displays a page with relevant health news items. The custom-built device not only allows drug companies to sponsor the health news offerings ( "Ask your doctor to prescribe this drug for you !") , it also sends a summary of the patient's complaint back to Phreesia's central server to be examined by its drug company clients ! Most people consider their medical records to be confidential, but Phreesia views them as market research. It hopes to sell the information to pharmaceutical firms looking to hone their drug rep sales calls and future ad campaigns.
What a shame that clever technology is being misused and manipulated for marketing purposes...
No comments:
Post a Comment