Decades ago, much of the US workforce was dedicated to farming, and lots of people didn’t have enough to eat. Through modern technology and more and more efficient practices, now less than 3% of our workforce is in farming, and we have an abundance of food.

Today, think about healthcare. Traditionally, we think of one patient sitting down in an office with one doctor. However, that model may drastically change in the coming years if the same “scaling” occurs.

The paradigm shift is away from one-on-one interactions – both in person and through telemedicine – and towards “Asynchronous Telemedicine.” Asynchronous is similar to how we communicate via email – that is, not in real time.

Take prescription refills – often these days you go to your doctor, she looks things over, talks about the risks and benefits of the medicine versus other options, generally educates the patient, and then writes the prescription.

In this asynchronous model, patients can request the pills online, 24 hours a day. The online portal does the educating, including available treatments and who should and shouldn’t use the service. And it walks patients through the informed consent process (which is already occurring in some settings in Washington). At the end, one physician quickly reviews the request, and with a couple of clicks, the patient’s prescription is sent to their pharmacy.

This can’t work for all health care, of course. For some conditions, patients need one on one time with their doctors. But for many routine things, this model may become a way for medical care systems to reduce costs (which hopefully means reduced costs for the patient/consumer).

Shockingly, one article states that such a company has shown that one doctor can safely handle a work flow of 1000 cases per hour (16.6 patients a minute, or one patient every 3.6 seconds).

Another slightly disconcerting thought – while we are a ways off from robot doctors, this may be the precursor to that. Said one proponent of the model, it “could be described as a precursor to the artificial intelligence . . “

Wow.

You can read an article on the subject here:

[Scaling Up — Jason Hwang and Asynchronous Telemedicine](http://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2016/11/02/scaling_up__jason_hwang_and_asynchronous_telemedicine_110219.html)