Multidisciplinary online medical consultations taking shape

Medical experts from Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital conducted an online multidisciplinary consultation for nine patients with complicated diseases today.

A total of 36 leading experts from four multidisciplinary teams participated in the consultation, which was conducted through an Internet-based service.

In each consultation, one patient, four family members and nine experts were online at the same time.

Dr Wu Hao, president of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, said Internet-based intelligent systems streamline processes, improve efficiency and reduce the impact of distance between doctors and patients.

"Through today's practice, we found the online service is not advantageous for hearing-impaired patients, and suggest that the service platform develop a function to transfer voices into subtitles on the screen to improve communication between doctors and patients," Wu said.

Ti Gong