This has been talked about before but it hasn’t been said enough. Practicing telemedicine via video call online is great but it’s a big change. Not just for you, but also for many of your patients. Because of that, many of your new, or even regular patients may feel your virtual clinic is a little alien to them on their first few visits. To help your patients feel more at ease with this process, there’s a lot you can do, some of which we discussed in previous blogs.
One of the things you can do is use props to simulate the effect of a physical doctor’s office. While there’s no imperative need for these props for direct medical reasons, they carry great indirect medical value, in that many patients can only maximise their benefits from telemedicine if they are at ease with their healthcare provider whilst using the video conferencing software to visit their virtual practice.
It’s true that you can’t use your stethoscope on a virtual patient in a video call. But it helps put some of your patients’ minds at ease to see one during a telehealth video call with you. Wear the stethoscope around your neck for optimum effect, in the most common way doctors visually display their stethoscopes in your community, whether it’s by putting the ear plugs behind their necks or simply slinging it unwound around their necks. Make sure it’s visible to the camera so that your patient can see the familiar sight of his or her healthcare provider wearing a stethoscope.
You probably saw this coming. After all, people have a tendency to call healthcare givers “the white coats”. Just because you’re providing virtual healthcare over virtual meeting solutions as well, doesn’t mean you get to shed your stereotype! Patients expect it of you, virtual patients or otherwise! Of course, pay the same attention to your white coat as you would in your physical practice. Make sure it’s clean and well-pressed before wearing it.
There’s more though. In a virtual video call all virtual presentation happens through your camera so even if your white coat is perfectly clean and well-ironed, the camera can make it seem a little wrinkly or less than as perfect as you made sure to make it. This means that another thing to additionally make sure of is to test how you look on camera wearing the white coat and adjust the camera to show you and your white coat in the best possible way during the video conference.
Anatomy Charts are perfect props, whether you’re attending a telemedicine virtual meeting with a patient or attending a literal telehealth video conference. Whatever the time of your telemedical video call, anatomy charts are terrific props to have in the background. They’re colourful and visually catchy, so you know people will notice them. They lend a professional air to your telemedicine virtual working space and they generally give your video conferencing audience something to look at while you look up a chart or follow up on a note.
Of course, not all anatomy charts are printed equal so make sure you select one that’s visually appealing as well as appropriate for your virtual medicine video call set up, whether this concerns the way your camera is set up or the general design of your telemedicine office. You may find yourself admiring particular anatomy charts that are wonderful but simply not the right fit for your particular video calling setup.
We assume you already have these three items handy? Maybe you need a new anatomy chart? When you get one, try Banty Virtual Clinic on us for a while, to see how much you can do for your patients with virtual medicine.
