Having been honored to speak at the Dutch 2017 Prize Event of Value-Based Health Care about the role of patients in clinical trials in a techno-world, it made sense that I opted for a virtual visit. In actuality, there isn’t much difference to a medical professional between a physical and virtual visit even there are still debates on this topic.
Even after the main barrier was eliminated and more patients wanting to go virtual, it seems the professionals didn’t like the idea. Looking through the entries for Value Based Health Care Dutch Prize, I discovered they were centered on better medical outcomes but none of them seemed to care what the patients wanted hence the #patientincluded movement to involve patients in the healthcare system by allowing them to have their own voice and gain free access to health conferences. Usually, medical practitioners always feel they always know exactly what patients need but the healthcare system would be much better if we paid more attention to the perspective of the patients as a lot of treatments. It will only be an advantage to consider the opinion of family, friends, and patients in a digital age such as this.
