Wrongful Death Case Exposes Flaws in Remote Healthcare
15 Jan 2025
Dr. Owais Durrani, Houston emergency room physician, STEM education advocate and APB speaker, was recently featured on MSNBC.com, where he wrote about a recent lawsuit against Amazon One Medical and how it paints a troubling picture of the future of telehealth.
The recent legal action against Amazon's telehealth service serves as an important reminder of the dangers that arise when corporate expansion takes precedence over patient welfare in healthcare settings, Durrani wrote.
In December 2023, The Washington Post reported on Philip Tong, a 45-year-old man suffering from diabetes who exhibited alarming symptoms, including coughing up blood and experiencing shortness of breath. His situation worsened as his feet turned blue. After seeking care through a video consultation with Amazon One Medical, he was instructed to obtain an inhaler. Tragically, he collapsed later that day and passed away in an Oakland emergency room. His family has filed a malpractice lawsuit against Amazon One Medical, claiming that the virtual care provider failed to grasp the severity of his condition and did not direct him to urgent medical attention.
The lawsuit accuses Amazon One Medical of employing inadequately trained staff and fostering an environment where patient care is “careless, reckless, and negligent,” Durrani said.
Durrani said that symptoms that Tong experienced are red flags for potential life-threatening conditions. Telehealth, he said, inherently limits a clinician’s ability to fully assess such high-risk cases. The subtle cues of how a patient is breathing, their sitting position and skin pallor simply can’t be assessed over video to the same extent as in person. This limitation becomes even more pronounced in models where clinicians are pressed for time and lack prior knowledge of the patient’s medical history, as can be the case with telehealth operations.
Despite the outcome of Tong’s case, Durrani believes telehealth is not inherently bad. It is a solution for many healthcare issues—increasing access, reducing costs and improving convenience. “But the healthcare industry’s traditionally cautious approach to adopting new technologies exists for a reason,” Durrani said. “This deliberation ensures that innovations are safe, effective and beneficial for patients. The One Medical case serves as a reminder that we cannot afford to sacrifice patient safety for the sake of rapid innovation.”
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