Doctors Use FaceTime Video Calls for Medical Consultations

At least one pair of doctors have used FaceTime video calling to consult on a patient who risked amputation, according to CultofMac.

In what may be the first documented iPhone 4 medical video consultation, University of Arizona surgeon David G. Armstrong, connected via FaceTime to give with Los Angeles Surgeon Lee Rogers’ a look at a patient who had undergone foot reconstruction at the University’s Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA). The virtual consult came in handy since Dr. Rogers was attending the American Diabetes Association meeting in Orlando, Florida when he took the “FaceTime” call from Armstrong, who had returned from Orlando to his SALSA clinics a day earlier.

“This really is a game changing tool,” said Armstrong, Professor of Surgery and SALSA director. “While the University of Arizona has had one of the world’s top tele-health systems, the ability to communicate quickly with something that is an afterthought has the potential to alter how we work with our colleagues and patients. Just as with the iPod in music and the laptop in computing, it is not the change in technology, but the change in form factor and ubiquity that alters this landscape.”


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