Telemedicine Is Getting the Boost It Needs to Enter the Future

COVID-19 is impacting nearly every industry in the world in one way or another. While the health sector is one of the most heavily impacted, not all the effects are negative. To keep people healthy, promote social distancing, and from collecting in large groups within waiting rooms, many doctors are turning to telemedicine as a solution for some of the simpler issues that patients face.

Telemedicine Use Jumps
Right now, telemedicine has become an alternative to in-office visits. Where screening can be done remotely or appointments handled without coming into the office physically, telemedicine fills in the gaps to continue providing care. Especially for those suspected of having non-life-threatening cases of COVID-19, telemedicine is a way to provide treatment without patients ever setting foot in the hospital.

It is also worth noting that due to the pandemic, the question of how to develop a telemedicine app is booming. So both doctors and patients have plenty to choose from in the app store.
Doctors in the US and around the world are being forced to throw together a plan for offering treatment online and over the phone without a lot of preparation. Now that there’s so much demand for it, is the tech behind telemedicine finally going to live up to its potential?

The Tech Powering Telemedicine
Video calls and phone calls are the basic tech behind telemedicine. But, there’s potential for much more than that. Doctors hop on a video call with a patient and ask simple questions to either triage the person and recommend further care options or to offer continued service for someone who can’t or shouldn’t go to the doctor’s office at that time. This limited service is usually only available at larger hospitals.

With today’s tech and internet connectivity, telemedicine could grow into something much more than it is now. It simply needs a push into the future.

Where Do We Go from Here?
The potential for telemedicine in the future is only limited by the services which cannot be provided remotely, such as certain types of testing or advanced procedures. Hypothetically, medicine has a lot of wiggle room in tech! Telemedicine has nowhere to go but up.

AR & VR Applications
While AR and VR don’t currently have an obvious place in doctor to patient interactions, they could be vital tools for training and assisting medical staff in remote areas. A great example of this was an experiment conducted using AR to help untrained volunteers run an ECG (echocardiogram) on a mannequin and then a real patient. The AR tech helped the volunteers by showing them where to place markers on the body and which steps to take in order.

Applications like this are a perfect way to utilize AR to assist with medical procedures and care from anywhere. VR also tends to be used more often in training and information collection rather than treating patients. Surgeons can use VR simulators to practice surgical skills and hand-eye coordination in a similar environment to where they will work in the future, but without the risk to any patients.

Efficient Online Communications

Telemedicine should be available to everyone, regardless of how tech-savvy they are. If we use the right programs, providing care this way will be simple for anyone. It should be seamless for doctors, trainees, and patients.

Efficient communication is one of the major benefits of online medicine. When care is delivered in video format, it’s easier to track that interaction for reference later. Particularly when using an online course platform for training, doctors can use screen recording software to record directions and teaching provided by an expert and refer back to it at any time. Patients may also choose to record telemedicine sessions so they don’t have to try to remember all the important facts from memory alone.

As our access to fast internet connections increases, telemedicine is going to get more convenient for everyone involved. Patients can receive simple care and recommendations from anywhere, or from designated care spots equipped with the tech to communicate with hospital staff. Doctors can provide care from any location with internet connectivity.

Particularly in times like the present where a pandemic is rendering many care providers unable to work as they self-quarantine, telemedicine helps health professionals continue working from a safe environment. Using available collaboration tools and social media tools telemedicine gives an outlet to keep more people healthy at home without diminishing access to much-needed checkups and care.

Greater Access
Hospitals and doctor’s offices today may be limited in their ability to provide telemedicine services, due to limited hardware, poor connectivity, or other restraints. Supporting infrastructure improvements and pushing for the implementation of new tech in telemedicine is going to help advance the access we have to medical services online.

We have so many incredible technologies available in the current day and many more on the way. It’s time to get creative and see how we can apply what we’ve learned globally into the practice of medicine. From simple tech to advanced AR and VR systems, everything has use if we look and see what it can do for us!