Imagine the following: A young man walks into a radiology doctor’s office. It’s a routine check-up for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a malignant disease of the lymphatic system. He just wants to know how well the last chemo went. The doctor treating him explains that she cannot say anything about the findings because she does not know the imaging after the last chemo. A problem that occurs in many practices today. The young man pulls out his mobile phone, calls up his electronic patient file and emails the x-ray image to her. She can give the all-clear immediately: no progression.
This is a story from everyday medical life
The young man was unable to access the old X-ray. He was given a code and was then able to call up the new findings using a link and password. He forwarded the link and access data to the hospital where he was being treated. No Answer. He called and found out that the hospital doesn’t do this “newfangled crap.” So he burned the data onto a CD – fortunately he had a CD burner at home, which is anything but normal these days – and sent it in the mail. No Answer. So another call; the CD never arrived. So he made an outpatient appointment, which took place 6 weeks later. He brought the CD with him and finally found out that everything was okay. It had been almost 5 months since the check-up appointment.