Jessica Fesler, MD: Experiences With Telemedicine In Epilepsy
The staff epileptologist at Cleveland Clinic’s Epilepsy Center spoke to her experience using telemedicine to manage patients with epilepsy and some of the unexpected perspectives it offers.
“One thing I wasn’t expecting was how you could see the patient in their environment. You learn more about them—not even so much from their medical comorbidities, but from the context of their disease.”
Telemedicine has grown in recent years into a more widely used method in the treatment of patients with a number of conditions, but at Cleveland Clinic, its expanse in epilepsy has been almost unmatched. For staff epileptologists such as Jessica Fesler, MD, it has become a regular practice in the management of patients.
The positives for patients are quite obvious from both convenience and cost-effective standpoints. With less time needed for the visit due to less travel, patients can avoid needing to take time off work, save on travel costs, and keep their physicians updated in light of inclement weather and other factors out of their control. However, clinicians can benefit from these alternative visits as well.
At the 73rd annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES), December 6-10, 2019, in Baltimore, Maryland, Fesler shared her insight from her involvement with telemedicine in a conversation with NeurologyLive, offering a unique perspective on some of the unexpected gains telemedicine provides clinicians.
For more coverage of AES 2019, click here.
