Technology as a tool in the coronavirus crisis.

The ominous spread of coronavirus has bolstered the case for such advances as telemedicine; drones; artificial intelligence/machine learning; Big Data; and more flexible regulation of health care personnel and institutions.

Telemedicine likely saved my then-92-year-old mother’s life. During a social conversation via FaceTime, her grandson, a physician, realized Mom was in the early stages of septic shock. A day’s delay in treatment might have proven fatal. Similar tales emerge from professional telemedicine doctors.

Addressing coronavirus shows another advantage — more capacity to provide care while minimizing the opportunity for contagion. Patients with non-coronavirus complaints can receive care without mingling with other patients — perhaps coronavirus sufferers — in crowded waiting rooms. Potential coronavirus sufferers can use telemedicine to make preliminary contact with medical professionals to devise strategies for care that minimize risks to themselves and to others.

Telemedicine can smooth demand for medical services. Rather than waiting in long queues, finding no appointments available, or sitting for hours amid the sick, some patients could seek care from doctors in other states via telemedicine.

The bottom line is that the current outbreak helps make the public case for more telemedicine.

Drones

In 2016, Rwanda established the world’s first nationwide system of medical drones. In that country, two-thirds of blood deliveries outside the capital are now delivered by drone. There are obvious reasons to use medical drones in America, including speedier deliveries over vast rural areas, in traffic-clogged urban areas, and across transport-disrupted routes (i.e., icy roads, hurricane-ravaged areas).

Artificial Intelligence

In 2015-16, Zika virus spread across Brazil. Simultaneously, there was an upswing in babies born with microcephaly (a smaller-than-normal head and an underdeveloped brain). WhatsApp, a peer-to-peer messaging platform popular among Brazilians, played an outsized role in tracking the spread of Zika and in demonstrating the connection between the virus and the birth of microcephalic babies.

Epidemiologists and physicians were able to search for patterns in the queries, discussions, and comments across millions of Brazilians. This was a 21st-century version of the famous “Ghost Map” of 1854, in which John Snow (an anesthetist) and Henry Whitehead (a clergyman) identified the source of a horrifying cholera outbreak in London and terminated the outbreak by shutting down a community water pump.

As with the Zika outbreak, decentralized internet data are being aggregated to track the spread of coronavirus and to predict its onset in other locales. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and resulting algorithms can identify patterns than no human being would ever see.

Medical regulation

The above accounts suggest that more flexible regulations for telemedicine, information systems and drones would be beneficial. Coronavirus should raise questions about regulatory oversight over other areas of health care. Should it be easier for doctors licensed in one state to offer services in other states? Should non-physician providers (i.e., nurse practitioners, pharmacists) have greater latitude to offer unsupervised services ?

Should public and private insurers reimburse physicians for phone calls, emails, video conferences, etc.? Should hospitals and clinics have greater leeway to expand services without going through expensive, cumbersome certificate-of-need processes?

It is time to better utilize technological innovation in health care.

Robert Graboyes is a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he focuses on technological innovation in health care. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.