Docs Use iPhone 4 FaceTime for Medical Consultation

Nicole Martinelli ()

Docs Use iPhone 4 FaceTime for Medical Consultation

iPhone 4 Video medical consult: Dr. David Armstrong confers with Dr. Lee Rogers (inset).

The iPhone 4 videochat feature FaceTime may not be televising the revolution any time soon, but at least one pair of doctors have used it to consult on a patient who risked amputation.

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.

Why did the two docs reach out using the iPhone 4?
“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.”

Decoded:  like cousin the iPad, doctors are finding it easier and faster to use in a pinch. In California, a hospital started handing iPads out to staff, may also find equipping employees with the devices cheaper than dedicated hardware and software.

At Kaweah Delta Health Care District in Visalia, doctors and staff already use smart phones, including the iPhone, to access the hospital’s network.  Over the weekend, the small group of doctors in a trial run were given iPads to keep abreast of patients, whether they are off site or in another wing of the hospital.

DON'T MISS
Hospital Equips Staff with iPads

So, yeah, it’s nice to think that the iPhone’s FaceTime will be used for giving more than just good face, or other bits. Though in my experience the novelty of video calls — available outside the US for years — wears off faster than you can pretend the connection fell because whatever you’re doing, it’s not quite ready for primetime…

11 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in iPhone 4, News, Top stories |

  • Me

    HBO buddy… that toe needs some Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.
    And please don’t take your iPhone into the chamber, ok?

  • Me too

    Been watching too much House?

  • Chris12163

    Wow this is a good story, I love stories that have to do with health and involving one of apple devices to change the way to interact with one another. The future looks promising.

  • bozooka

    I just wonder if this complies with HIPAA guidelines for secure communications. I am doubting it does.

  • LD

    @ bozooka:

    Why wouldn’t it? A phone qualifies, doesn’t it? I imagine Skype qualifies. This is really no different.

  • bozooka

    @LD

    I was just asking if it complied with HIPAA guidelines. Like you, I can speculate or “imagine” it qualifies, but I would just like some real answers. Alot of the HIPAA guidelines are pure BS, but they will still fine you $10,000 per violation still the same.

  • lh

    I am waiting for the day when we can consult with a Doctor using video conferencing using any technology. My iMac would work just fine. We have been driving 200 miles to see a specialist Doctor.

  • Edwin

    wow!!! if you read this it almost make you believe that Apple invented the video call…

  • Jack

    @ Edwin

    Everyone knows Apple didn’t invent the video call. No one ever claimed they did. They’re just implementing it in America (and some other places) in a way we haven’t seen before. It’s just like the iPad. There wasn’t a truly successful tablet PC until Apple came along and did it themselves.

  • Edwin

    @Jack
    “They’re just implementing it in America (and some other places) in a way we haven’t seen before.”
    You can’t be serious, right? I’m living in a third world country here and I have seen doctors and other professionals use webcams or cellphones with video call capabilities long before the iPHone ever existed. And you’re telling me that “nobody” in America has ever seen two people communicate by video over a cellphone? Yeah right…

  • Jonathan Rowson

    As a practicing physician in a rural area of North Carolina, I think this has loads of potential! The HIPPA regulations are rather allowing when you are discussing appropriate patient care issues in a secure setting. Now if you are using FaceTime and talking to someone in a crowded elevator, that’s a different story. I also can see the iPad being useful in the hospital for lots of things where data entry may be MUCH easier than using a traditional keyboard/mouse, as long as staff have an easy way to carry it around in a secure casing, because anyone with experience in a hospital setting will tell you that staff (physicians/nurses, etc) can be hard on sensitive electronics where the focus is NOT on being gentle with the gadget in question but treating the patient.