According to Mercom Capital Group, telemedicine companies bagged $19 million in three venture funded deals, the second highest fund flow in Q2 2012. Thus one of its branches, teleradiology, was a natural choice for our cover story in this issue, which traces the many twists and turns in its evolution. Telemedicine could play a major role in filling the accessibility gap in India’s healthcare system and hopefullly the 12th Five Year Plan will harness its reach and potential.
Like teleradiology, imaging practitioners continue to find new uses for existing technologies. For instance, a scan that is quite literally the last hope of patients with chronic liver disease, Fibroscan measures the ‘stiffness’ or ‘elasticity’ of the liver. At its heart, the Fibroscan is nothing but an ultrasound scan which creates waves and measures their speed. This gives an idea of the ‘stiffness’ of the liver, thus indicating the extent of liver fibrosis and enabling the doctor to plan treatment better.
But the same modality behind the Fibroscan, which offers hope for chronic liver disease patients, has come under fire for its role in sex determination and hence increasing cases of female foeticide leading to skewed gender ratios. Imaging clinics have been raided, ultrasound machines have been seized, and now the authorities are planning to bring into force a law that will restrict the practice of radiologists. The potential of a technology has turned into a pain point, ironically because as practitioners push the limits of technology, we will also end up challenging ethics. But resolving these ethical dilemmas calls for debate and discussion, not a knee jerk reaction and new laws.
There is strong opposition from the radiology fraternity. Their stance is: why blame the modality/ technology or the practitioner when what we need is a complete mindset change in society, besides a revamp of existing laws. The coming months should see many more developments on this front. While we give an update in this issue, do write in with your views which we’ll be sure to feature in the forthcoming issue.
Viveka Roychowdhury
Editor
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