June 12, 2021
There has been a spike in interest and use of telehealth services, and this process is catalyzed by the innovation of simple to use technologies that are transforming the healthcare industry. In the past few years, telehealth has improved significantly having introduced some specialized telehealth services such as Teleburn, Telestroke, and video-enabled multisite group chatting. All of these advancements broaden the scope of telehealth that was once considered as remote doctor consultation only. Along with these improvements, there are some proven areas or healthcare problems for which telehealth can be the potential solution.
According to a survey by Merritt Hawkins, the time to schedule a new patient physician appointment in 15 major metropolitan areas of the US has increased by 30% since 2014. The survey indicates that a person who wants to schedule an appointment with a general physician will have to wait for 24 days on average in 15 largest cities of the United States.
Along with that, normal working hours of specialized providers are 9-5 and Monday to Friday that makes it more difficult for the working persons to consult medical conditions as their work can suffer due to the medical appointments during working hours.
Telehealth may not be able to fully eliminate this national problem but its virtual patient provider connection feature can significantly improve the access to doctors whenever needed. Video consultation through telehealth is available 24/7 and it offers broader access to specialized care so the people of remote areas or working persons get medical attention whenever required without waiting so long to schedule an appointment or travelling to their provider’s office.
Wearable smart devices have transformed the scenario of patient monitoring. This new technology has enabled the provider to monitor the health of their patients remotely. Along with that, these smart devices can record and transmit important health information to your provider that can help to timely diagnose any developing medical condition that may lead your provider to promptly cure the disease at an early stage before it becomes complex.
Wearable devices are not just limited to smartwatches, e.g. Apple watch, in fact, an array of wearable devices are being used out there to remotely monitor the health of hospitalized persons too. Among these devices, QBIC and AMON are two of the most used devices. QBIC is a general belt integrated with computing platform for home and hospital use while AMON is specially designed for heart patients. These smart devices ensure detailed medical monitoring and automatically alarm your provider if anything is not going well.
Telehealth has the potential of vast implementation in health communication, and it can radically modify the face to face communications. Health communication scholars can use telehealth to extend their target audience while it gives them a refined and humanize approach to deal with global health issues. Telehealth is a two-way communication medium that provides a better understanding of unique needs, resources, problems, and opportunities regarding global health issues.
Telehealth is transforming the healthcare approach from service-centric to consumer-centric, but despite its high-end benefits, the usage of telehealth services is still limited. Although the telehealth services and their usage are improving gradually, for now, it is not at the point to fully resolve the problems of the healthcare industry. Despite the low usage rate, consumers are open to using telehealth services, so it is wise to use telehealth enabled EHR software to avail benefits of this advanced technology and to control the growing list of healthcare industry problems.
