Telemedicine can be referred to as the application of telecommunication and technology to offer medical care. This is the process where medical information is transferred over the internet or the phone to offer to consult and for some situations, patient examination, and even some medical procedures. This technology is normally a wide range of services that might include a simple conversation over the phone with your colleague to the use of a video call for a real-time provision of medical treatment options across countries. This technology came about due to the information technology boom that has been witnessed since the advent of the 21st century.
In the current state, this field is transforming quite faster than it has ever been before. It is due to the growth in technology that we have witnessed this transformation and this has resulted in the accessibility and affordability of the services of telemedicine. It is one of the ways that offer full-time access to medical services, staffing solutions for the medical facilities, and also the virtual doctor visits. Given that there has been a rise in the number of people who have access to smartphones, there has been development in plenty of mobile applications through the use of telemedicine to ensure that there is easy and convenient monitoring of the health of the consumer. This has also led to the invention of simple portable devices for the monitoring of the patient’s vitals such as the blood pressure or the glucose levels from the comfort of their home.
Telemedicine comes with plenty of benefits. One of the most significant of these benefits is the reduction in the cost of healthcare. Telemedicine achieves this through the reduction of the number of hospital visits, reduction of travel time as well as addressing less staffing. Another amazing thing about telemedicine is that studies have demonstrated that there little to no difference in the quality of health services provided whether in-person or through telemedicine. Additionally, for some of the select areas in healthcare such as ICU and mental health, there are many benefits that telemedicine offers which comes with a lot of satisfaction to the patients.
However, there is something that needs to be understood well; that telemedicine is not a replacement for the family physician. Nevertheless, it is one of the quite useful tools which could be used for the augmentation of the in-person treatment. A lot of people want it since as mentioned, it reduces the time they have to travel and at the same time lowers stress with the potential of impacting families greatly. For many years, the studies that have been done have shown patient satisfaction for this sort of medicine.
Therefore, there is no doubt that the future of telemedicine is great. Given the advancements in the fields of technology like virtual reality and also the ever-growing telemedicine services, there is an exciting future in this field. A survey that was done in the past showed that 75% of the people interviewed had an interest in telemedicine services and thought that it had a bright future.