Telehealth: What Makes It the Next Stage of Healthcare
Telehealth did not come up to revolutionize the healthcare industry. Originally, it was just an additional tool to ensure medical care for people living in rural areas, far from large hospitals, or in low-income and underserved areas of large cities.
Through this system, basic health services are offered to patients remotely, without the need to share the same physical location. Medical appointments are carried out through communication technologies, such as webcams, video conferencing apps, and mobile phones.
Cut to the present day, and telehealth is more popular than ever—the drastic increase in usage, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The healthcare industry had to adapt quickly to the distancing rules, and attending patients remotely seemed like the best way out. In the post Covid world, telehealth based services like cardiology telemedicine have become a part of the wider healthcare system as standard. Telephone calls have become a useful triage point for patients who require advice, diagnosis or further help, services such as https://medicalhousecalls.com/ utilise telephone call services in order to determine what is wrong with a patient so that they can make a visit to their home and provide them with the appropriate care for whatever is wrong.
Here is everything you need to know to understand why telehealth is recognized as the future of healthcare treatment.
Combining Technology and Healthcare
Picture the scene: you wake up with a headache whose cause you can’t identify and decide that the best thing is to see a doctor. However, the nearest hospital or clinic is far from your home, and you need to drive there or take public transport. Afterward, he will still be forced to spend hours in a waiting room with patients suffering from other diseases while waiting for an appointment.
Telehealth allows you to skip all these steps by offering the opportunity to perform your medical appointment remotely. And there are many advantages of mashing technology with healthcare processes:
Healthcare Providers Meet Their Patients Virtually
The distance between doctor and patient is eliminated with the ability to diagnose and treat patients remotely. Connecting with healthcare providers online makes it possible to provide immediate and reliable care – even if more severe cases still require face-to-face appointments.
Among the benefits of remote healthcare, here are some to consider:
Access to healthcare is expanded to more remote and isolated areas.
- Cuts costs and travel time for both patients and healthcare professionals.
- Communication apps allow for faster contact between doctors and patients.
- The process of transferring from one specialist to another is also faster.
- An online appointment with the doctor and the patient in different locations – eliminates the risk of disease transmission.
Bypassing In-Person Appointments
In the old model of face-to-face appointments, many patients fail to follow their treatment simply because they stop attending regular appointments. This happens mainly due to the distance from the clinic and travel costs.
Telehealth eliminates inconvenience and reduces costs. It also allows different issues related to a treatment to be discussed with the doctor remotely. This closer and more frequent connection can allow specialists to identify symptoms or diagnose health conditions earlier.
In addition to physical problems, remote care is crucial in cases of mental health. Especially during the lockdown, many therapists and psychologists continued talking to their patients using video conferencing. Today, the system is considered a quick and safe option even to prevent suicides.
Remote Healthcare
In the old days, you had to go to a doctor’s office to be weighed, check your blood pressure, etc. Today, gadgets such as smartwatches and fitness trackers allow the remote monitoring of patients.
The patients share data with their healthcare providers using the internet from their own homes. Doctors can collect and analyze information in real-time to monitor heart rate, glucose levels, blood pressure, and even how the patient’s sleep cycles are going.
It’s possible to identify patterns and make more accurate diagnoses than those based on data collected in a single face-to-face appointment.
The information collected remotely can be added to the use of electronic health records (EHRs) to ensure even faster care for patients, especially those with chronic diseases. So don’t waste any time and research the functions and advantages of using EHRs for hospitals.
Telehealth is Here to Stay
Telehealth was originally created to reduce distances between doctors and patients. Then, it became an alternative to reduce cases of community transmission in times of COVID-19, replacing in-person visits canceled due to quarantine restrictions.
Today, more and more patients seem inclined to adopt the telehealth system for first medical appointments, less urgent cases, or follow-up appointments for treatments.
Considering mainly the cost-benefit relationship, there is a growing expectation by patients and the general public for more options related to their health needs.
They want providers to be more easily accessible, to receive treatment more conveniently and quickly, and to lower and more transparent costs.
So, there’s no doubt that telehealth is here to stay, even as the pandemic is easing. Two recent surveys revealed that one in four patients (23.1 percent) said they used telehealth services last year and that 76 percent of patients reported a preference for continuing using the system in the future.
A Safer System
The end of the pandemic should not decree the end of telehealth. On the contrary, experts guarantee that this is a trend that will become even more popular in the so-called “new normal.”
Telehealth is more convenient and affordable for patients and a safer system for everyone, keeping patients and doctors in their own space.
In addition to shortening distances, remote appointments also take some of the pressure off healthcare professionals. In the end, everyone wins.
