What medical specialties are available in a telemedicine booth?

Our findings

Whether in rural areas with few practitioners, or on the contrary in overpopulated big cities, the so-called "medical desert" zones are becoming more and more widespread across France every year.

To combat this phenomenon, which describes too few doctors in relation to the number of patients, the government has put in place a project to combat it, to be implemented by 2022.

In the meantime, and to help solve this problem, companies such as Tessan have developed new technologies to guarantee access to healthcare for as many people as possible. cabins or terminals or telemedicine terminals.

These booths, which can be set up in pharmacies or town halls throughout France, put patients in touch with a GP in just a few minutes via videoconferencing.

While not all medical specialties can be presented in this format, patients greatly appreciate the ability to access general medicine and some specialties quickly.

What's more, the consultation is totally private, thanks to the sound and visual isolation of the cabin, and the doctor is perfectly capable of issuing a prescription to the patient if necessary.

In short, there's not much difference from a traditional appointment, apart from the way it's organized.

Is it possible to see all the specialists?

No, not all medical specialties are available via the telemedicine booth or kiosk, and that's perfectly normal. Some fields require precise manipulations or the use of specific products that cannot be carried out safely by the patient himself, so for the time being they are still carried out in conventional practices. However, when it comes to general medicine, almost anything is possible.

For dermatology or ear, nose and throat (ENT), certain aspects of the consultation can be carried out remotely, thanks to medical devices available in the cabin.

The dermatoscope will enable the dermatologist to analyze moles and other lesions on the patient's skin using a 4k image, enabling him or her to make a diagnosis remotely and, if necessary, refer the patient to an in-office consultation.

Ditto for the ENT specialist, who will be able to use the connected otoscope to inspect the patient's ears in the same way as if the patient were in his or her office, except that here it is the patient who manipulates the medical device.

All the connected devices available in the cabin are intuitive and simple to use, so that practitioners can easily guide the patient through a consultation in optimum conditions. These include a stethoscope, thermometer, scale, blood pressure monitor, oximeter, otoscope and dermatoscope.

Single-use mouthpieces, hydroalcoholic gel and disinfectant wipes are available inside the cabin, so that hygiene measures can be as strictly observed as during a conventional consultation.

What's the point of such a cabin?

We mentioned it at the beginning of this article: the medical gondolas were designed to give everyone access to healthcare, even in so-called "medical desert" areas.medical desert"where few, if any, doctors are available.

Of course, it's an excellent cause, and one that prompts town councils to invest in this type of equipment, but it's not the only advantage. In fact, pharmacies that have installed a medical gondola on their premises have seen a real increase in the number of people visiting their premises, and a corresponding rise in sales.

Not only do patients leaving the medical gondola with a prescription pick up their medication directly from the pharmacy in which they are staying, but this also increases the number of sales of parapharmacy and cosmetics products, as the number of visitors to the pharmacy increases.

On the patient side, those who have had the opportunity to consult a GP in a medical booth say they would definitely recommend this method to their friends and family. They also feel that the waiting time to be put in touch with a doctor is very reasonable, at around fifteen minutes, which is no longer than the waiting time in a conventional waiting room.

These gondolas are also a very useful tool in complicated times like the present, or even during periods of severe flu, for example.

This avoids the doctor having to deal with any possible contamination, and the same goes for patients, who don't have to wait in waiting rooms often filled with various circulating microbes.

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