Searching symptoms online has become so common there is a name for the condition of health anxiety induced by self-diagnosis on the internet: Cyberchondria.
As diabetes progresses, insulin injections become the only treatment option. But the transition from oral medication to injectable insulin is often a bumpy one.
By creating both an urgent need for mental health care and the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the pandemic is enabling telemedicine to go mainstream.
During the pandemic, health care providers began prescribing abortion pills without requiring in-person exams. This practice could help people access the care they need when abortion rights are in limbo.
Pandemic-related travel restrictions and facility closures initially jeopardized access to abortions, but the pandemic has also become a catalyst for more accessible ways to deliver abortion care.
Given the success of telehealth and virtual care during the pandemic, it would be a mistake to automatically return to pre-pandemic norms of health care.
With COVID-19 placing heavy demands on the health-care system, non-COVID patients may struggle to access care, putting women, people in poor health and those without a regular doctor at risk.
The old-fashioned telephone – well, maybe not a rotary dial, but a phone nonetheless – became a way during the pandemic for patients to ‘see’ their doctors. Could this trend continue?
With most therapy sessions now online, a psychologist explores whether more self-disclosure by therapists – sharing more about their own lives – might help their patients.
Health systems have very quickly pivoted to providing services online, but there is much more to do if we’re to unlock remote healthcare’s full potential.
Terminally ill patients in nine states and Washington, DC can use telemedicine to get a doctor’s approval to hasten their end of life. But family members must mix the lethal drug cocktail themselves.