Innovations in family medicine and the implication to rural and remote primary care

Modern medicine is characterized by introducing new innovative medications specially designed after understanding the mechanisms of diseases. Such process revolutionized the management of many diseases, but is usually more relevant to secondary and tertiary care. However, in parallel, we are observing an emerging wave of new technologies, devices and applications with particular relevance to primary care and significant implications for rural and remote areas. The approval processes by regulatory authorities all around the world are more flexible and less demanding in comparison to the approval of new medications. This process may lead to innovative treatments where the balance between benefit and harm is not clear and well documented in the conventional way of prospective randomized clinical trials. On the other hand, these technologies are adopted by the patients, in the case of free-of-charge applications or “on the shelf” devices, or by authorities, for example in the case of remote and telemedicine consultations. In such a way, disciplines that ignore these technologies or are too cautious and slow in adaptation can find themselves trailing behind. Family medicine and especially remote and rural medicine can benefit a lot. We should be on the frontline in the considerate adoption of relevant technologies, and in this way improve our patients’ health and keep family medicine attractive to the young generation of physicians. This editorial is aimed to serve as a window to this new era with the presentation of some of these technologies.