As I write this article the national frenzy set of by two nurses who contracted Ebola while caring for a patient continues.  A physician returning to the United States developed symptoms and was hospitalized per protocol, and politicians quickly jumped in to quarantine a nurse returning to the US from treating Ebola patients.  Apparently everyone is concerned about protecting everyone in the US.

In a recent article the question was posed  “Direct-to-consumer telemedicine: Has its time come?"  According to the ATA telemedicine is defined as “the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s clinical health status.”  In 1996 when Claritin began ads on television spawning a multi-billion dollar industry of direct to consumer sales telemedicine truly arrived in prime time. 

Having just returned from the American Telemedicine Association conference meetings in Austin, I began to reflect on the dramatic changes that have occurred in the delivery of healthcare over the past fifty years.   The opportunity to manage patients anytime, anywhere, utilizing wireless monitoring devices and remote real-time consultations has the potential to improve the quality of care, while dramatically reducing the cost of care.