Opinions around the world
Our team is keenly aware of the fact that revolutionizing the healthcare industry is not something that can happen overnight. We seek a solution that could change the global healthcare landscape not only for patients, but for medical professionals all around the world as well. However, our genuine belief in the tremendous potential of DEVITA simply isn’t enough to guarantee the success of our project. For this reason, we decided to sit down for interviews with doctors from all over the world, to explore their professional opinions and inputs on our work, in order to learn more about the ways we can improve DEVITA.
We’ll share our findings in a new series of articles that we’ll kick off with an interview we conducted with a true veteran, a 68-year old anesthesiologist from Hungary with 44 years of professional experience in the healthcare industry. We’ll respect her wish to remain anonymous in this article, and will refer to her as Dr. M. from here on.
Q. As an anesthesiologist, you have treated countless patients throughout your career. Would you say that people arrive well-prepared for a surgery?
Dr. M.: In my personal experience, people are generally cooperative with the medical staff and doctors before surgeries. After all, a safe and complication-free operation is also in their best interest, so why make it difficult for all people involved in the process? Most of the patients I’ve treated before have been honest with me and made sure they provided all necessary documents we required to ensure their safety and a successful surgical procedure. However, I do remember some instances where patients forgot to bring some of the necessary medical records with them, or lied about certain conditions they had.
Q. What’s the basic procedure for instances like this? How do you handle situations where the patients effectively sabotage the safety of the process?
Dr. M.: That depends on each situation. For example, when patients forget to bring their records and documents we need for their medical procedures, that’s mostly inconvenient for them, as we simply refuse to offer them treatment for their own safety. Of course, this can lead to frustrations on the medical staff’s side as well, since oftentimes we have to rearrange entire weeks of schedules just because of a single surgery being cancelled or postponed. But sometimes, missing documents are actually not the patient’s fault. Since the database we use is only semi-digital, important records can sometimes get lost between doctors and administrative offices within the local healthcare system.
Q. I suppose the stakes are much higher when patients lie about underlying conditions or illnesses they don’t want to disclose to their doctors.
Dr. M.: Of course. In such cases, frustration is the last thing to worry about, as people’s lives are on the line. I remember, one time a patient lied about having any underlying conditions, and we only realized he’s epileptic after he woke up from anesthesia, and had an epileptic seizure. Had the anesthesiology team known in advance about his condition, we’d have used a different method to ensure we won’t accidentally trigger the patient’s epilepsia. This is just one of many cases I’ve experienced in my career when a patient lied to the staff for some reason. Sadly, it’s a fairly common phenomenon which can be lethal — and unfortunately, we can’t do anything about it with the technology and laws currently in place. Our patients always have to sign a consent form before surgeries, in which they’re asked to agree to disclose any and all required medical information to their doctors, or to take responsibility for all possible casualties. Even so, some patients still choose to lie, and oftentimes, the conditions they lie about go fully unnoticed even after the surgery is concluded.
Q. Seems like the documentation system in Hungarian healthcare isn’t fully reliable. Could you walk me through the basic process?
Dr. M.: As I mentioned before, the documentation and database systems we use are only semi-digital, and we still store many of the patients’ documents locally and printed. However, a few years ago, the Hungarian government introduced a national cloud service exclusively for healthcare-related documentation processes. This cloud can be accessed by both doctors and patients, but there are a few complications. First of all, the cloud isn’t the safest, because once you share your social security number with any medical professional, your records can be accessed basically anytime, by anyone who has access to your credentials. Second, the server often crashes, and the cloud is not accessible for days at times. And last but not least, you need external tools in order to be able to access the cloud as a medical professional: your ID, an ID card scanner, and your phone. When we’re working, it’s quite rare that we carry all of those things on us, and so using the cloud can be a lot of hassle.
Q. Having said all of the above, what do you think DEVITA could help with the most in Hungary’s healthcare system?
Dr. M.: From a doctor’s perspective, I think DEVITA could be exceptionally helpful in documentation processes. I really like the idea of having a safe and reliable database where I can always find everything I need to provide the best possible care to my patients. With DEVITA, we wouldn’t have to worry about lost or missing medical records, or our patients lying to us about their conditions, which would drastically improve not only the quality of services we provide, but also the speed of our overall workflow. From a patient’s perspective, I can think of many advantages as well. I’m diabetic, and I have regular checkups with my diabetologist and gastroenterologist every week. In a lot of cases, these checkups are only necessary because I need to hand in certain documents or records. This would be so much easier through an application like DEVITA, and it’d save tons of time for both my doctors and me. Not to mention that my doctors could make better decisions if at any given time, safe sharing of my records would be possible — and I’d sleep easier knowing that my data is shared with only the people I’ve authorized access to.
Q. How about DEVITA’s telehealth functionality? Do you think it’d be something that would be helpful in your practice?
Dr. M.: In my specific practice, using telehealth is not an option, since I have to be present in the surgery room to perform anesthesia. My responsibilities also include consultation before surgeries and ambulation after the procedure, but I’d still prefer being there with the patient, especially throughout the latter. I believe that a face to face experience is much more efficient, since there are a lot of things to do or pay attention to while I’m with the patient. For example, I always measure their blood pressure, check for swollen lymph nodes, check if their hands or ankles have any swelling — these kinds of procedures are best done in person, since many patients lack the necessary equipment in their homes to perform the checkups themselves. However, in case the patients can participate in these basic checkups, I believe that telehealth consultations could work in my field of expertise as well. For example, if the patient can measure their own blood pressure at home, or put a small microphone to their neck through which we could hear their pulse… Things like that. Nevertheless, I do believe that doctors working in different fields could greatly benefit from DEVITA’s telehealth, especially people whose primary services include consultations in the form of mostly verbal communication, or for doctors with a lot of regular patients whom they are in touch with daily.
Conducting this interview helped us tremendously in understanding the current inefficiencies present in DEVITA, in regards to the services that strive to make medical professionals’ lives easier. We value the feedback and input of our users above all, and we’ll continue to improve DEVITA in order to be able to cater to the needs of both our user groups. Follow DEVITA’s Medium for more interviews in our latest series of articles, Opinions around the world. Please stay tuned to our Telegram channels and Twitter for an exciting series of updates to be announced within the next couple of months.
About DEVITA
DEVITA is a decentralized healthcare platform applying the latest digital technologies to solve classic problems in healthcare access, data, and infrastructure.
Website | Telegram (Global) | Discord | Reddit | Twitter
DEVITA is not an investment product. DEVITA is not intended in its design or distribution to be utilized as a form of investment, speculation, or as a financial product. No information herein constitutes financial advice. PLEASE do your OWN research before participating in the DEVITA Platform. Neither the DEVITA team nor any representative affiliate of the DEVITA team will ever solicit investments.
