Telehealth addresses the pain points of patients and provides quick access to healthcare, especially for rural populations, elders, and people with disabilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person visits for non-urgent care became a challenge and telehealth provided a quick solution. This has set the path for more improvements and innovations in the field of healthcare.
We throw light on the contribution of telehealth to global healthcare:
1) Emergency care:
Remote patient monitoring allows physicians to use internet connected devices to track the risk of individuals with serious health issues by minimizing their exposure to coronavirus.
Let’s say a coronary patient returns home after being operated at the hospital. Such a patient would need to maintain lifestyle changes and take medication to recover. The physician can be in touch with the patient by monitoring his blood pressure, weight and other indicators without calling the patient to the hospital. This would avoid further health complications by extending timely care.
2) Triggers more innovations:
Telehealth contributes considerably to healthcare as virtual patient care leads to more data. Artificial Intelligence utilizes this data to come up with more AI applications that further improve patient care making a significant contribution to virtual healthcare. Thus, innovation in the field of telehealth and healthcare will proliferate even after the pandemic subsides maintaining its popularity among the patients and healthcare professionals.
3) Impact on psychiatric care:
The day isn’t far when AI-embedded high-definition video conferencing can analyze patient’s facial expressions to better decipher patient’s emotions. This could help the psychiatric care team to understand the moment to moment change in the emotional state of the patient thus, rendering better solutions/ treatments.
4) Collaborative efforts:
The most significant contribution to global healthcare is the distribution of care. Now healthcare will be available to many locations between various hospitals and also between hospitals and homes. Patients need not visit the hospital for all their care needs.
They might start visiting the pharmacy or the nearest clinic for X-ray or an ultrasound supported by AI. Hospitals will collaborate/connect better and the need to keep visiting bigger hospitals for healthcare will reduce.
5) Equitable care:
We face a shortage of healthcare professionals fueling healthcare disparities. Rural areas face a dearth of healthcare facilities. As compared to urban Americans the rural population has lesser access to health care professionals. So, they are more likely to lose their lives due to lack of preventable care.
Turning to telehealth care services leads to equitable care as it improves accessibility and affordability. It reduces the bills of patients and helps them access high-quality healthcare quickly irrespective of geographical conditions.
Global healthcare is now moving to more equitable care as more patients get access to care virtually as the gap between the people who can afford healthcare and those who cannot, lessens.
6) Provides preventable care:
Primary care visits are crucial as prevention is better than cure. Doctors can detect the diseases early and give immediate care. This avoids hospitalization and surgeries that are expensive.
Telehealth lessens the primary care cost because healthcare providers can manage the patients visits effectively. This lowers the costs involved in care like administrative staff and waiting rooms.
Patients too skip primary care due to the cost attached to it. But now we have a cost-effective solution with telehealth getting more and more popular. Now patients can consult doctors for preventive care to avoid bigger bills in future.
Telehealth care has improved global healthcare at lesser costs. It is also encouraging the value-based healthcare system. It cost effective, convenient and efficient too. Above all it is leading to further innovations benefitting the patients and healthcare professionals as well. A win-win situation for all.
Lifecycle Health walks the extra mile to render best healthcare experience through telehealth services saving time with digital patient communication, and more effective care coordination.