Do you know that 53% of Polish people would like to have a video consultation with a doctor?
As it might sound unreal, some countries have already implemented virtual hospitals, where professionals can diagnose, treat or send patients to adequate specialists.
Health Village
The first country, which came up with this idea was Finland. In 2016 Finnish university hospitals together with Innofactor, Microsoft and Tieto as technology partners started a project called The Virtual Hospital 2.0 (Virtuaalisairaala 2.0). They were working on a new service- the terveyskylä.fi, which is translated into Virtual or Health Village.
Health Village is a digital hospital, where all of us can check health information without charge or get support. It was created together with doctors and patients and that makes the service easier to use. Health Village is designed especially for monitoring life quality, lifestyle and symptoms. It also helps people struggling with long-time illnesses. To join a specific digital care path patients need to have a current doctor’s referral.
In the Health Village you can find 115 specific digital care paths and 32 hubs, which can be divided into two categories. First category focuses more on a specific illness or disease (for example Joint Hub, Heat Hub or Cancer Hub). There are also hubs helping various patients groups (for instance Surgery or Rehabilitation Hub). Every hub includes information, service guidance, self-care programs and symptoms navigators.
Health Village was developed using cloud services and generic service frameworks. It helps to quickly create new treatment paths. Symptom navigators are operating by rule and process engines. Health Village is accessible through a browser or a mobile device.
Currently Health Village is available for international users and the number of monthly visitors averages 615 000.
Visit their website and read more!
Samitivej Virtual Hospital
Another online hospital was created in 2019 in Thailand. Samitivej Virtual Hospital is a telemedicine application available through mobile devices. It is accessible from any place, at any time- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It helps patients to easily get in touch with health specialists by video calls or online chats.
Samitivej Virtual Hospital is available to everyone, not only Samitivej Hospital Group patients. 15 minutes of online consultation costs 500 baht- 14,85 euro.
Please note that virtual hospitals can not be used in emergency situations and do not provide official medical diagnosis.
Visit their website and read more!
PwC, Digital Poland and IQS report says that 79% of Polish people would agree to share their anonymous medical tests to scientific institutions. Maybe it means that Poland is ready for its first virtual hospital?
References:
https://www.virtuaalisairaala2.fi/en/
https://www.samitivejhospitals.com/samitivej-virtual-hospital/#
https://healthmanagement.org/c/it/news/virtual-hospital-app-becomes-reality