Telemedicine and telepharmacy initiatives are using low-cost workstations to conduct patient encounters using videoconferencing. A new generation of video camera that can be attached to your clinical workstation is becoming sophisticated enough to provide an accurate assessment of many medical problems. Products like Microsoft Netmeeting, Netscape Conference, White Pine's CUSeeMe, Vocaltec Surf Call, and AOL Instant Messenger are revolutionizing the way we communicate. Self-Care Management Prevention has always been a difficult challenge for health care providers. Helping patients to make lifestyle changes is especially difficult.
Patients are often noncompliant with their treatment regimens.
Moreover, health care providers perceive little return on investment when considering addressing prevention or lifestyle behaviors. Yet health care systems want to enroll patients who can be labeled as self-care managers. Patients generally fail their treatment regimens because they do not know what to do or how to do it, or they are not motivated to comply with the regimen. Care should be taken when designing technology-based interventions in this area, because the greatest predictor of patient adherence is still predicated by the degree to which patients perceive that the health care provider cares about them. There is a problem with much of the quality of information found on the Internet.