Hybrid Consultation

 

Hybrid consultations are those that use components of both live, interactive and store-and-forward consultations. Typically, these are used in specialties such as dermatology or cardiology where higher quality images than those provided by standard video are important diagnostic tools and direct patient interaction is necessary. In pediatric cardiology, the specialist would use videoconferencing to observe the patient and to talk with the parents while viewing an echocardiogram that had been obtained by the technician just prior to the videoconference. A hybrid consultation has the advantage of making better use of all technologies that are available to diagnose and care for the patient and is not limited to a single communications channel.

 

To engage in live video consultations, you need to be equipped with the right hardward and connection.  Minimum requirements include:

 

• High-speed Internet connection

• Flash-enabled Web browser

• Webcam

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) processor 

• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM 

• Windows or Mac operating system