Editorial Revisado por pares

The 'House Call' in the Electronic Era

1992; American Medical Association; Volume: 267; Issue: 13 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1001/jama.1992.03480130144043

ISSN

1538-3598

Autores

Charles E. Driscoll,

Tópico(s)

Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare

Resumo

Medicine has been linked to the telephone since its invention. From 1872 through 1876, Americans Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell raced neck and neck to develop an electrical voice transmission device. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell summoned his assistant Thomas Watson over his new "voice line" as Bell was experiencing a minor emergency from spilling acid on his skin. Three years later, Lancet carried a description of what was probably the first over-the-phone diagnosis by a physician who identified a child's croupy cough and provided reassurance to his patient's family. 1 Today it is estimated that between 15% and 25% of primary care contacts take place by phone. 2-4 The final disposition of ambulatory office visits is a planned telephone follow-up in 3.3% of family practice and 8% of internal medicine encounters. 5 What we do in everyday practice has long been in need of studies that

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