The evolution of the healthcare industry has been largely marked by the adoption of telemedicine. Let us know more about telemedicine, and how it has influenced this change.
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine uses video conferencing, smartphone apps, and online management systems to allow healthcare workers to attend, diagnose and treat patients from a remote distance.
What is telehealth?
Telehealth is the provision of healthcare-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies.
How telemedicine has revolutionized the healthcare system
The role of telemedicine in revolutionizing the healthcare system has been exemplary.
- Accessible healthcare
In many parts of the country, getting access to proper healthcare is a big obstacle. In such cases, adoption of telemedicine has been life-saving. Telemedicine has enabled patients to get on-demand access to specialists and super specialists, thus accelerating the process of diagnosis and eventual treatment.
Logically, telemedicine has been seen to decrease mortality rates by a noticeable margin. Telemedicine has also helped people do away the costs that would go into travelling to a remote hospital, which would in turn demotivate a lot of people to seek healthcare. In fact, even in cases when a doctor on vacation is unable to attend to patients in an emergency situation, video calls have still made it possible for them to be present in real-time.
- Better patient outcomes
With patients having access to timely healthcare from trained professionals, the quality of healthcare has also improved to a great extent. People who otherwise had to travel and wait for long hours to receive secondary and tertiary healthcare, can now do that from their homes. They could also consult more than one specialist, to ultimately zero in on the process of treatment that they want to acquire. - Flexibility for healthcare professionals
Healthcare professionals do not have the choice of taking their jobs lightly, as it’s always a matter of life and death. But with telemedicine, doctors are now able to diagnose and treat a patient from a remote distance. And so are the non-medical staff who have to perform various instructional tasks. This remote access to healthcare has allowed healthcare professionals to have a better work-life balance, without having to inflict dire consequences on the lives of people. - Cost-effective treatment
Remote analysis, monitoring services, and electronic data storage significantly bring down healthcare expenses for the patients, as well as the healthcare providers. Multiple offline visits and transportation costs are also done away with. These virtual meetings are also highly time-saving, meaning hospitals can now accommodate more appointments in a particular timespan. This can also boost their revenue.
- More awareness
In a perfect world, every healthcare professional should be able to attend to every illness. But sadly, that’s far from reality. In reality, doctors and medical professionals in rural areas aren’t properly trained to attend to complicated cases. Thanks to telemedicine, healthcare professionals are now being trained to attend to various situations, and rural doctors also have the opportunity to enhance their knowledge of medicine. A lot of times, diseases spread because people are not aware. Needless to mention, this is especially true for areas where there is hardly any reach. Starting from AIDS to dengue, the number associated with these diseases has been seen to go down with the use of the internet to spread awareness. - Safer for medical personnel and patients
During times of a pandemic or epidemic, telemedicine can help both the patients and medical personnel to avoid coming into contact with the causative particles.
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