Telemedicine helps care for seniors, while pediatricians increasingly care for young adults

As part of a special section on aging, The Washington Post reports on telemedicine for seniors: "Imagine a 75-year-old receiving wireless medication reminders, straight to his beeping wristband. ... Although developers and advocates have promoted telemedicine for years, Alice Borelli of Intel points to barriers -- including Medicare reimbursement policies and inadequate broadband in parts of the country -- that have kept telemedicine a mostly conceptual solution. … Telemedicine can't replace hospitals or nursing homes, but it can delay the need for them." Telemedicine could help fill an increasing need: "A 2007 study showed a 20 percent decline in the ranks of certified geriatricians over 10 years; only 11 percent of medical schools require students to complete a geriatrics rotation" (Egan, 8/10).

Wall Street Journal: "These days, more young adults are staying with their pediatricians at least through their college years, says David Tayloe, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who still practices in Goldsboro, N.C. Even though most colleges have health services on campus, when students are home for weekends and holidays and need a doctor, the pediatrician's office may be staffed when the adult-oriented internist's office isn't. 'We're cheaper and nicer and easier to get a hold of,' says Katherine Karlsrud, a Manhattan pediatrician ... Some major medical centers have opened young-adult clinics to help ease the transition" (Beck, 8/10).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.