Benefits Of Telemedicine And Telehealth And How These Concepts Can Drive The Healthcare Industry?
Technology is making significant advancements in any and every industry and healthcare turns out to be no longer an exception here. Well, have you ever come across the term telemedicine or telehealth? Both are definitely different terms which we will explain later in the post. As for now, you can say that both terms are strictly used in the healthcare realm to enhance care and provide amazing relief for doctors as well as patients. The following post focuses on what Telemedicine and Telehealth are and how they are beneficial for the industry and why healthcare organizations must consider them to be worthy of their investments.
After the massive COVID pandemic, telemedicine and telehealth technologies are found to be gaining momentum by leaps and bounds. Is it a mere hype or does it actually offer some eye-opening benefits? So let’s delve into the details and have a better understanding of the emerging concept. Also, I would like to add that in today’s times, you will come across several reputable Healthcare Software development firms that are well-versed with the industry and its ever-changing needs and offer Healthcare software development solutions regarding the same.
Telemedicine – A Detailed Introduction
As the name implies, telemedicine is all about assisting patients remotely with the help of all telecommunications technology. In fact, several studies have revealed that the telemedicine market size in India would gain a more than 30% hike by the year 2025. Though there are some healthcare providers who resist or hesitate in opting for such technological advancements but fret not, after going through the following post I can guarantee you that your perception about these evolving technological advancements is definitely going to change. Further, I would like to mention some eye-opening stats about telemedicine technology.
- More than 85% of clinicians have already vouched or integrated the concept of telemedicine.
- A significant rise has been observed from 11 to 76% in 2020
- 48% of healthcare specialists consider telemedicine for treating their patients
- The global telemedicine market will rise up to USD 73.2 bn by 2026.
Though this one turns out to be the new horizon in the healthcare industry in no time, it seems to have offered benefits like never before. I mean who doesn’t like having real-time two-way communication between the patient and the healthcare provider virtually? Initially, telemedicine was more or less all about phone calls where a patient can effortlessly seek advice from their healthcare professionals, especially regarding non-emergency issues. These issues are the ones when the patient is not at all required to visit the doctor in person. Though, earlier telemedicine did not include face-to-face consultation but now it certainly does, all thanks to the ever-evolving healthcare software development projects.
In the present scenario, the role of telemedicine is all about offering convenience to both the parties, doctors as well as patients. And do you know what is the best part, it turns out to be way more cost-effective and time-saving. Another interesting aspect of telemedicine technology is that it enables healthcare professionals to bifurcate between urgent calls even once the doctor leaves his or her clinic. Moreover, it also assists well in taking up the follow-up of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
However, this is not just for immediate medical problems but also for those who need dosage adjustments, lifestyle regimens, prescription refills, or even just access to group support. With the inception and worldwide adoption of Internet technology, it is possible to conduct audio and video calls affordably. So you say why shouldn’t we consider telemedicine technology as a feasible alternative?
Types of Telemedicine
- Interactive Medicine – Here both patients and physicians tend to communicate well with each other in real-time (all this is done keeping HIPAA compliance in mind).
- Store and Forward – Providers can easily share all the relevant patient information with another practitioner in another location.
- Remote patient monitoring – Remote caregivers can seamlessly monitor patients, especially the ones residing at their homes by using different medical devices for collecting important data on blood sugar or blood pressure.
Services Provided Through Telemedicine Technology
- Proper primary care and referral services, initial consultations, allocating the healthcare professional, booking an appointment, conducting a live interaction video or keeping regular logs of the diagnostic images, patient vital signs and/or video along with the patient’s data to review later.
- Monitoring patients at remote locations or providing seamless home health services. With the help of numerous devices, ample patient data is collected and sent to the home health agency or a diagnostic testing facility. Several aspects such as homebound patients, such as blood glucose testing results, ECG information, or a host of other information about the patient is included.
- In telemedicine, the use of wireless devices keeps on increasing enabling consumers to access specialized health information and also enabling seamless peer-to-peer support.
- Offering the best medical education remotely is possible.
Benefits of Telemedicine
#1 Amazing Care Experience
One of the obvious benefits offered by telemedicine is that it offers an amazing care experience. Now healthcare professionals such as Doctors, Nurses, and Physicians can offer a seamless range of services by opting for teleconsultation solutions. With the dawn of insane technological advancements, patient-centric care is given way more importance than physical facilities. Also, by collaborating telehealth records with electronic records enable caregivers to provide the best services to their valued patients.
#2 Better Decision Making
As soon as the healthcare industry started opting for telemedicine technology, they witnessed a sudden change in their decision-making process. You see these technological advancements ensure they monitor their patients all the time even when they are in their home environment. For instance, practitioners now can easily identify the cause of allergies as they can easily have a deep look at the surroundings. With the help of telemedicine technology, neurologists and physicians can now keep regular tabs on their patients and take pretty good care of their patients by offering regular mental health assessments and counseling.
#3 Cost-effective
Another amazing benefit offered by telemedicine is that it turns out to be pretty cost-effective in every manner. Sometimes even if you have good health insurance, opting for a doctor and therapist can cost you a lot more whereas opting for telemedicine appointments can cost you pretty less than especially in-person visits which significantly reduces out-of-pocket costs, and many more.
Apart from all these, there are times when you or your grandfather or even your baby might have a fever in the middle of the night and instead of panicking or relying on all the rubbish written on the internet, you can easily connect with your healthcare professional via the technology. Here you are bound to receive the correct answer and get an accurate diagnosis or prescription instead of simply googling everything and not being sure about what to do. Above all, here doctors get to stay home too.
It may quite interest you to know that telemedicine technology was used in a variety of ways during the pandemic.
- Screening for COVID symptoms
- Contact Tracing
- Monitoring people on a constant basis
- Quick testing and decision making
- Freeing up hospital beds
- Not filling up emergency rooms like crazy (Offering to those who are in need)
Other than COVID, Telemedicine can be used for:
- Wellness visits and blood pressure control
- Non Emergency follow-ups
- Mental health counseling
- Prescriptions for medications
- Physical Therapy exercises
- Tele intensive care
Now enough being said about Telemedicine, time to focus on telehealth for a while. Wait a second, are telemedicine and telehealth different? Of course, they are. And do you know what is the worst part, several policymakers, healthcare systems, advocacy groups, and vendors are found using such terms correctly and incorrectly, especially for telemedicine and telehealth. Well, it is very important to spot the difference here.
Telemedicine is technology referred to as healing from a distance. Yes, with the use of telecommunications technology and information technologies, healthcare professionals can seamlessly offer remote clinical services to patients. Right from sharing digital imaging, video consultations, remote medical diagnosis can be offered by this technology in particular. As from the patient’s perspective, they no longer have to visit or schedule in-person visits with the physician especially when one can have easy access through secured audio and video calls.
Telehealth on the other hand is the absolute usage of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support and promote long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health education, public health and health administration.
Though the definition sounds a lot like telemedicine but there is some difference. You see telehealth focuses well on components like administrative meetings, continuing medical education (CME), and physician training. So in other words, telehealth is not a specific service but a huge collection of different methods meant to enhance the overall care of the patient.
What is Telehealth?
Well in simple words, telehealth can be defined as the absolute delivery and facilitation of health and different health-related services. So if you are looking for absolute medical care or health information services, self-care, and digital communication technologies, look no other than Telehealth service providers. Telehealth is an umbrella term used for mHealth (or mobile health), video and audio technologies, digital photography, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and store and forward technologies.
What kind of services Telehealth exactly offers?
- Teleconsultation – Here the physicians or any other healthcare professionals can seek advice or consult specialists for complicated conditions even the ones residing at a distant location. More or less, here they can share relevant medical information such as CT, MRI, ultrasound scans and a lot more. Wondering how? Well, through electronic media records, files and folders, appropriate diagnosis and treatment can be recommended.
- Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) – Remote patient monitoring is said when healthcare specialists get to monitor their patients without paying them a visit in person/in other words, outside clinical settings. Now have you come across the term, diagnosing patients from the home? You see with several technological advancements taking place and the increase in the scope of wearable devices, all the relevant data/information is collected and transmitted to the healthcare experts. So again, doctors can keep regular tabs on their patients and can be accessible whenever in need. For example, if the patient is diabetic, the transmission of blood glucose in real-time is extremely important and thus unwanted mishaps can be eliminated.
- Telehomecare – It’s not just diabetes or blood pressure which can be treated with telehomecare. In fact, several chronic conditions such as dementia can also be controlled with regular checkups from the home. In case of any critical situation like a person with dementia leaving the house, the caregivers are given instant alert and appropriate action can be taken.
- Point Of Care (POC) – Last but certainly not least is the point of care. This one is more about focusing on the diagnostic devices placed in the patient’s home, doctor’s offices and clinics. Also, these devices tend to work in remote areas with no electricity or laboratory equipment. POC is famous for detecting micronutrient deficiencies, anemia, infectious agents, and even some cancers.
Benefits of Telehealth
- Healthcare services have become way easier
- Even if you are facing any infectious disease such as COVID, these services can offer great assistance.
- Primary care can be given irrespective of the condition
- Seamless access to medical specialists
- Enhanced communication and coordination of care
- Increased the number of virtual visits
- Remote monitoring and accurate decision making
- Patient portal featuring prescription refills, review test results and summaries, booking visits for preventive care
- Personal health apps for storing relevant information, vital signs, calculating and tracking calories, scheduling reminders, and recording physical activity such as walking, swimming or yoga.
- Personal health records can be viewed on any computing device such as laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.
Conclusion
So this is it for now! I hope you have a better understanding of what telemedicine and telehealth is and why these two are the top-most trending topic or concept in the healthcare industry. With the rise of such technological advancements and healthcare software development projects, the industry surely seems to have a long way to go!