What Will Make Asynchronous Virtual Care a Common Reality?

People have wholeheartedly embraced asynchronous communication around the globe. In business and social circles, communicating with tools such as text messaging, Google Docs, and Slack is now par for the course.

Doctors need to acknowledge that the traditional patient-doctor relationship is becoming a thing of the past. “Healthcare has always been about that synchronous scheduled appointment in the office, and now more commonly the scheduled video visit,” Parkinson said.

This patient-doctor relationship, which is built on real-time conversations, however, is no longer the cornerstone of healthcare. “The new generation of patients who are digital natives are saying, ‘I want access and I want convenience. I don’t really care about the relationship.’ So doctors need to rethink who they are and what they do,” he said. And they need to let go of the concept “that the patient-doctor relationship is the most important thing in healthcare.”