The uses of Second Life™ in doctor-patient relationships

First let’s talk about some of the obstacles in getting into SL (Second Life) virtual world.  Even with some IT background, I had to struggle with some difficulties in learning how to move about and emerge myself into this non-reality world.  I presume with improvement in technology and creativity, Second Life has become a virtual world for everyone to exist in this somewhat fantasy land where you can be someone else without any personal risk, and because of the highly creativity and complex software applications in building this virtual world and all of its contents, the process of learning to manipulate your avatar (graphical representation of yourself) is quite technically challenge, and will take some time to get used to and be comfortable with, and even more so with non-technical person, especially the elders.

Secondly, at first glance Second Life is very similar to many other virtual games that many teens and young adults play to escape real life, therefore by association Second Life may not be taken seriously unless proven to the general public any possibilities of true health benefits, or else there will be reluctance for people to cross the borders from real lives into virtual lives.

But now as I'm in this virtual world and have gone to Davis Island and participate in a few experiment  such as youtube/ "Virtual Hallucination",  I can see there are numerous possibilities Second Life can bring some advantages for both doctors and patients, such as;

 - Creating virtual scenarios or role plays between doctor and patient with a general list of questionnaires to be ask from either party, so the patients can know what to be expected when make a visit to the doctor's office.

- Building a virtual environment (example:  a doctor's office, examination room, a surgery room) so patient can visually see and perhaps will be at ease before they actually make a doctor/hospital visit.

- Creating virtual scenarios for both young and adults patients to have a general idea of what will be taking place from the patient’s  point of views when coming in for a simple general physical check-up to highly complex surgical process such as heart bypass surgery…if possible.

At this point in time, I personally feel that having a patient-doctor relationship in Second Life could not fully replace a face-to-face doctor’s visit or video conferencing between doctor and patient because the world wide web is an open market of information where the genuine goods are hard to detect from the illegitimate, and therefore the word “trust” from patient to doctor may not have the same resonance in Second Life as in “Real Life”, and because Second Life can often implies a virtual place for fun and enjoyment and therefore  will bring forth doubts concerning the true value of health benefits until it is scientifically proven so.

The Termination of CLASS Act by the white house administration.

The CLASS act also known as the Community Living Assistance Services which had been championed by the late senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, was designed to provide long term health insurance to the old, the poor and the disables.  This program which had been passed by congress in 2009 was a voluntary long-term care insurance program that would have been financed with premiums paid by workers through payroll deductions with no federal subsidy, and according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) this program would have save 70 billion dollars over 10 years, but since the law makers require this program to be solvent for 75 years, and as a voluntary program, if there aren't large number of (young and healthy) people willing to sign up, then premiums would then have to be set higher and higher to cover the likely costs of benefits, so therefore this program would be too costly to work and financially unsustainable.  This of course has given reasons to critics and politicians alike to play the blame game.

As part of the Affordable Care Act, this long-term health care program perhaps was not the best fiscally and viable plan as part of the reduction in our federal budget, but compare to other major ideas being debated this year, it was the better alternative.  While it’s true this plan would shield Medicare’s 48 millions current beneficiaries, raised premium on upper-income new beneficiaries, penalized if they also purchased private insurance, and pay higher deductible, at the same time cost cutting would also affect others such as, pharmaceutical, and hospital industries with “price control”, therefore affect the revenue and profitability and may result in jobs lost.  But as we know, reducing the deficit budget will always affect your finance or services by making you either pay more or get less.

As most of us already know that our country is financially broke, our social security already bankrupted, and our health care is in a state of crisis, and sooner or later we all will get old and will need some form of long-term assistance program in order to cover the high cost of health care.  So unless we believe that health care for everyone is an essential part of living in this country and therefore it is socially responsible for all of us to participate in a sound health care program where everyone contribute a fair share of insurance, for the alternative are some will live rich and healthy while others will live poor and die.

The United States, one of the richest country in the world and yet our health care system ranked worst among the richest nations and not because of the quality but accessibility and affordability.

Welcome to my first blog post

Hi my name is Kien Johnson, and I am a student at University of California, Davis.
My goal is to get a certificate for Health Informatics, and my first assignment is to create this "Health" blog. The purpose of my blog is to openly discuss any relevant issues regarding to Health Care in general, but will also be focus more on EHR (Electronic Health Records).
My background is mostly in IT and very little on "Health information" , so I welcome
any feedback that would help me in my goal.

Thanks in Advance,