Case Study 2: Telesurgery in Different Countries

We have established that the cost of telesurgery, when all areas are accounted, is considerable indeed.  How will different nations handle these costs?  It is expected that many factors will come into play, most importantly the degree of public healthcare, and geographical population distribution.

The United States’ healthcare system is largely private.  One author brings attention to an important point: healthcare costs in the US are spiralling out of control (Whitten & Sypher, 2006).  In 2001, combined healthcare costs were $1.4 trillion, and the projected cost for 2011 is $2.8 trillion (Whitten & Sypher, 2006).  National healthcare costs have doubled in the last decade.  Another important point is that 9% of the nation’s physicians practice in rural areas (Whitten & Sypher, 2006), while 17% of the population lives in rural areas (US Department of Agriculture, 2009).  A great disparity in race exists as well, with many ethnic groups having less access to healthcare.  It can be argued that the US will need more than money to implement a telesurgery system; geographic and racial disparities will also need to be addressed.

To look at a country with a higher degree of public healthcare, we examine Canada and Australia.  Both countries also have a very low population density.  In Australia, the government spends millions of dollars every year transporting patients to medical centers (Kumar, 2008).  Patients use chartered flights, and the government will sometimes pay for the patient’s family to fly to the medical center, as well (Kumar, 2008).  While this may be less of a problem in Canada, it certainly exists to a lesser degree.  Telesurgery would help to cut down on these travel costs.  In Canada, it was made a priority to give regulatory acceptance to the ZEUS robot, which has been tested on a small scale (Kumar, 2008).  Furthermore, the nature of universal healthcare means that all taxpayers would pay for a telesurgery system (whether they would benefit or not from this is discussed elsewhere).  Regardless, this does help to make the procedure affordable for those who need it most.  It seems like countries with Canada and Australia, with public healthcare and low population densities, are best suited to be the first trials of a telesurgery system (Kumar, 2008).