Have you or a member of your family ever gotten sick while traveling away from home? It can be exceptionally daunting to go from trying a new food on the beaches of Hawaii or spending all day swimming around the lake, to suddenly falling ill.
Is there a doctor around that will be able to help? Most often the answer is yes, but finding one can prove to be a challenge.
Luckily, advancements in health and technology today make it much easier to see a doctor — even when you are away from home or on vacation.
Telemedicine, or online video visits, allow patients to communicate with their doctors via computer, tablet or mobile device. Whether you get a sore throat in the middle of the night at home, or one of your kids has a stuffy nose on a summer trip, online video visits can be used to get the care you need.
I spend most of the year four hours south from home, away at school in Baltimore, Maryland. Within the first few months of my freshman year, I developed a mysterious excruciating pain in my lower back.
Unaware that it could be a cyst, an inflamed ingrown hair, or something else that needed urgent attention, I rested and covered it with ice packs—to no avail. I was still in the most distressing pain of my life.
I eventually found a reputable doctor and was back to normal in a couple of weeks, given the proper treatment. But things could have gone much smoother had I conducted an online visit and been able to contact a doctor quickly and easily from the comfort of my dorm room.
Another health problem arose some time after I came home from school and went on vacation with my family to Las Vegas for a few days.
All was fine and good until my brother woke up in the middle of the night with piercing ear pain. He was no stranger to ear infections so my mother went to her bag to retrieve his medicine, only to realize that she never packed it.
We were able to find a doctor outside of the Las Vegas Strip that gave us medicine to alleviate my brother’s pain, but everything took longer than desired. Once again, seeing a doctor more quickly and conveniently via an online video visit would have been much easier.
Finding access to quality medical care that is convenient for you and your schedule hasn’t always been easy, but now it can be.
Before fleeing from the site you’ve traveled to in a nervous frenzy, desperate to find a doctor to help your sick child or family member in need, you can now feel at ease knowing that a helpful physician is only one video call away.
Options like LiveHealth Online allow you to video chat with a doctor and communicate easily so that you can go on with your day and feel secure that you are getting the help you need.
LiveHealth Online lets users located in the United States set up a video visit with a board-certified doctor to assess a condition, answer questions, review health history and prescribe prescriptions based on a physician’s judgment and state regulations,. It’s a new way of being able to visit with a doctor without having to go to a doctor’s office.
Whether you’re a mother traveling with kids away from home, traveling for business or a student away at school, video visits via LiveHealth Online may be beneficial to you.
If you are interested in trying video doctor visits using LiveHealth Online, visit: https://www.livehealthonline.com/ and sign up here.
Happy and healthy traveling!
Reviewed July 15, 2016
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith
Sponsored by: LiveHealth® Online
Read more in Health Technology Insider