After the first few cases of the COVID-19 pandemic were reported, many people quickly turned to telehealth as a means of receiving and giving medical treatment without exposing themselves to the virus. Telehealth use for doctor’s appointments and other outpatient services increased by 80% between February and August 2022.

Post-pandemic telehealth

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, AI has become increasingly prominent in the medical community. Before the epidemic, people didn’t take remote medicine seriously, but now it’s essential.

Requests for medical advice from a doctor can be fulfilled quickly and accurately using telemedicine. During a pandemic, this may be especially useful for preventing illness transmission in waiting areas. Another study found that before the invention of COVID, just 11% of Americans used telemedicine, but now that the technology is widely available, approximately 76% of Americans would rather use it. This is because people have become more conscious of the rapidity with which illnesses may spread.

Although telehealth technologies have many positive outcomes for patients and providers alike, there are still considerable obstacles to overcome before this care paradigm can be used permanently.

What are the areas of application for telemedicine?

Telemedicine may be used in three main categories: telediagnostics, home care, and specialized applications. Diseases can be diagnosed remotely in telediagnostics, meaning the attending physician is not required to be there in person. Teleradiology is a subset of telediagnosis in which imaging data, such as X-rays, CT scans, or ultrasound images, are sent to specialized facilities. In this setting, specialists review the information on a teleradiology workstation and relay their diagnosis to the treating doctor, who then speaks with the patient. Telepathology is another area where telediagnosis is being used. Digital picture data are examined by specialists using cutting-edge microscopes and then provided to the treating physician.

Tele-homecare, often known as telemonitoring, is the use of digital equipment to communicate patient data, such as glucose or blood-pressure readings, from the patient to the treating physician. This enables doctors to monitor vitals, including blood sugar, heart rate, and oxygen saturation, in real time and take immediate action if necessary.

The consequences are not limited to the medical arena; industries like aviation and shipping may also reap the benefits of telemedicine. It might be difficult to get timely medical attention when flying or at sea. Telemedicine is currently possible because of the ability to transmit electrocardiogram (EKG) data from an airplane or ship to a ground station.

Remaining challenges to scale

The entire potential of virtual care has yet to be realized, despite these improvements. Some examples of such difficulties are as follows:

• Despite the rapid growth of point solutions, consumers, payers, and providers are still feeling overwhelmed. This highlights the importance of greater data integration and enhanced data flows among the many participants in the ecosystem.
• Hybrid care models, which blend online and in-person care delivery, need improved integration of online health-related activities into physicians’ day-to-day workflows.
• For virtual health models that aim to lower the overall cost of treatment, financial incentives must be aligned with this shift away from the fee-for-service paradigm and the concern with reimbursement parity.
• There is a chance to enhance healthcare access, quality, and cost and to seize a market opportunity worth an estimated $250 billion by adopting telehealth. Leaders in the field may work together to better the telehealth experience for patients and doctors.

Any aspect of health technology should make it easier and better to care for patients. People of all ages can benefit from telemedicine’s accurate and affordable analysis. Telehealth’s other major benefits, including remote patient monitoring and relieving the strain on healthcare professionals brought on by rising demand for healthcare systems, help to guarantee the technology’s continued success.