Telemedicine technology during a pandemic
As the pandemic affects countries across the globe, the healthcare systems have turned to digital technologies to predict the spread of the disease, gathering and analyzing huge amounts of data, and diagnosing and treating patients through remote mediums.
Telemedicine apps and virtual healthcare have provided means to ensure social distance and prevent the spread of infections between patients and healthcare workers.
Currently, the sheer necessity of diagnostic consultation has become significantly important for people, as it is an ease of use technology. The pandemic has made social distancing mandatory and has decreased the availability of effective treatments. Along with clinicians, telemedicine is becoming the safest interactive system between both infected and uninfected patients.
Where some of the evidence-based of implementation of telemedicine services has been hypothesized their use has been starkly increasing because of the high risks of poor prognosis.
During the pandemic, the substantial lack of data is continuously limiting the possibility of tracking the real management of the disease, which is only supplemented from previous evidence gathered under normal conditions. The pandemic has also helped in understanding the importance of remote monitoring.
Let’s dive deeper into the world of telemedicine consultations, and their significance in the healthcare industry.
What is Telemedicine?
A telemedicine consultation is generally defined as a mix of both technologies and devices, allowing a remotely and easy way to gain information regarding a patient’s health in order to help them in deciding whether there is an immediate need or urgency to intervene.
Therefore, it may be defined as a diagnostic and screening tool that has shown remarkable results and significance in recent literature, largely because of the higher deployment and development of digital technologies such as smartphones, smartwatches, etc.
In fact, telemedicine apps such as Blocknubie’s Vault provide digital forms for healthcare entities that can be executed on any device anytime and anywhere. This blockchain product assists healthcare providers in creating and hosting their own patient forms through a simple and intuitive form-building interface.
By using appropriate tools, clinicians can reach and periodically monitor people facing difficulties attending specialist visitations. This applies best to people having chronic diseases that require regular follow-up. Furthermore, in the case of first-hand appointments, therapy can be regularly and systematically assessed by sending data recorded on a digital tool to the specialist.
Advancing Telemedicine in Blocknubie
Telemedicine is the future of healthcare, and Blocknubie is leading this charge. By using the latest advances in blockchain technology and online identity management and securement, the telemedicine app from Blocknubie provides self-sovereign digital healthcare records.
Blocknubie’s mission is to provide patients ownership of their own medical data. The AI system used in Blocknubie has the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery by providing decision support, fraud detection, patient care, and disease management to patients, and is quickly becoming the industry standard.
Blocknubie’s telemedicine app helps patients address and manage symptoms, obtain information about conditions faster, and proceed towards early treatment.
Potential Uses and Benefits of Telemedicine
Maintaining the flow of care to the farthest possible extent prevents many negative consequences, such as delayed chronic, preventive, or routine health care. Furthermore, by using technological devices, the process of gathering and sharing patient data to clinicians becomes faster. There are many applications of telemedicine in healthcare places and ecosystems.
Some of the most important benefits of adopting and using telemedicine apps are the following:
- Telemedicine decreases the spread of virus: Through virtual consultations, patients are able to access and consult doctors without the risk of spreading the virus to other people or health care professionals. By making a video call, the medical staff are able to determine whether patients are in urgent need of physical care or can safely continue to self-monitor and track symptoms at home.
- Telemedicine improves patient engagement, therefore leading to better clinical outcomes and decreased healthcare expenses: Using telemedicine has shown better long-term care management along with higher patient satisfaction. It provides a new way to locate health information, access follow-up care, and communicate effectively with practitioners.
- Telemedicine improves health care affordability and accessibility: The convenience of telemedicine allows patients to receive health care from the comfort of their home, without having to spend more on healthcare accommodation.
- Telemedicine extends insufficient healthcare resources by saving in-person resources for patients in critical need of in-person care: Telemedicine helps solve shortage issues by freeing up medical supplies and staff for those who develop serious illness from the virus. Throughout this pandemic, telemedicine has proven the ability to address and manage patient volumes.
Importance of Telemedicine in Pandemic
Telemedicine consultation was initially considered as a solution to provide medical assistance in rural areas, where there is a lack of healthcare access. It primarily aimed at improving serious illness management as seen in chronic diseases, mostly during emergencies.
Over time, the outbreak of epidemics and pandemics has led to the deployment of several novel digital technological strategies. These strategies have also instantiated the use of telemedicine during many different stages of the infection at an increased rate, as seen in different cases, such as the SARS epidemic 2003 and later in MERS-CoV 2013.
During periods of emergency, the novelty and the wide expanse of telemedicine present a challenge in differentiating the possible settings used in such technology. European research in telemedicine consultations hypothesized few potential evidence-based scenarios in 2015.
For example, using the services of telemedicine facilitate dealing with all asymptomatic subjects in an area of an epidemic. This at-home management system is most useful during suspected infection-related symptoms. It also helps subjects follow up at a dedicated referral center.
COVID-19 Evidence
Since the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the Coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) on 11th March 2020, we had worldwide lockdowns, tremendously affecting daily life, including most of the health care systems, who have faced the task of managing both infected and non-COVID-19 patients.
In fact, the use of telemedicine consultations has increased because of the positive evidence from previous epidemics and pandemics, as well as from technological advancements. This evidence is especially found in developed and industrialized countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States, and China.
Newer digital technologies have enhanced phone interviews that are commonly used in virtual visitations, telemedicine consultations, and checkups. In fact, the lack of a cure, shortage in vaccines, and undermined treatment systems, with lockdowns and social boundaries as preventive measures, make telemedicine services the safer interaction system between clinicians and patients.
In addition, a large aspect of this pandemic has improved patient compliance with the use of digital tools in healthcare systems.
Telemedicine Consultations: Where are we Headed?
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic could represent a further step towards widespread adoption, and a diffusion of telemedicine programs in routine clinical practice, as well as in hospitals and other healthcare places.
As discussed before, the major benefits of adopting telemedicine are the avoidance of visitations to doctors and hospitals during lockdowns, and also the collection of medical information and data, which are useful for better treatments.
Therefore, patients are able to receive safer and better quality treatment without having to leave their homes during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Blocknubie offers state-of-the-art AI and Blockchain solutions that help healthcare companies and organizations to remain at the forefront of the application revolution, making sure to maximize competitive advantage. It is the telemedicine app of the future.
For more information, contact at info@blocknubie.io.
