Telemedicine will cut pressure on doctors and allow patients to stay in their own homes rather than in hospital, having their conditions monitored down the line in new forms of doctorless medicine. Els Borst-Eilers, the Dutch Health Minister, said that the shortage of doctors and nurses in the Netherlands had resulted in an increase in the use of telemedicine, with patients having their bodily functions monitored from hospital while they stayed in their own homes. It was a reassurance to pregnant women and to people with cardiac problems, she said on Monday.
Patients love it and have the feeling they are managing the disease for themselves.
But with medicine becoming ever more expensive people may also find themselves penalised by employers and health insurers for failing to take preventive care themselves, for example by dieting or giving up smoking. Borst-Eilers also warned on the possibilities of genetic screening for all with a predisposition to a particular disease. It was fine, she said during a debate on medical advances, to screen those who knew they could adapt their lifestyles to lower risk. But she would oppose genetic screening for diseases where no cure was yet available. The growing costs of medicine provided a focus for the debate with few at the forum in Davos, Switzerland, believing that western governments would have the political will to impose the tax levels required to make available to all the benefits of all the new medical technology.