Telehealth and Telemedicine: What is the Difference?

Mordor Intelligence in its survey states that global IT healthcare is expected to reach $20 billion by 2020. So how and when did technology find its way into healthcare?

1. Discussion on the possibility of using the telephone to reduce unnecessary office visits as reported in the Lancet article in 1879
2. A magazine displayed a doctor diagnosing a patient by radio, while also pointing out the potential of using a device that would enable video examination of a patient over a distance.

Telemedicine can be defined as a process that integrates the practice of medicine using communication or information technology to deliver remote care. This requires the use of electronic communications and its relevant technological components to facilitate patients with clinical services as well as assist clinicians to remotely monitor the patient, altogether withdrawing the need for an in-person visit.

The current pandemic outbreak has shown a clear rise in the adoption of Telemedicine technology and its offerings. With telemedicine, follow-up visits, management of chronic conditions, medication management, and specialist consultation can be provided remotely.

In the contemporary world, the global health care system is changing much through the application of innovation. Technology through telemedicine has allowed high-quality healthcare service delivery to reach the most remote and rural areas. Though the challenges attached with this healthcare model may seem greater, the benefits overweigh in many aspects.  The benefits of telemedicine are far-reaching as it offers approaches for centralizing specialists, reducing costs, supporting primary care clinicians.

The adoption of telemedicine worldwide means, equipping human civilizations to adapt better to public health emergencies such as Covid-19, which requires rapid deployment of large numbers of healthcare providers and providing basic healthcare services that local hospitals and healthcare centers are unable to deliver. Telemedicine is a means of providing healthcare information to infected people and also non-infected people, which is why it is important to shift the discussion from the use of telemedicine for public health emergencies to chronic conditions management to include diabetic, heart, or other areas of healthcare service provision.  This requires increased discussions as well as the integration of telemedicine into accreditation for healthcare providers, funding, and redesigning clinical care models among other things. It is safe to say that as communications technology advances and progresses, the quality of healthcare service delivery will improve due to correlation between the two domains.

As a result of the progress made in information technology and the increased demand for such innovations, new methods have emerged such as automated logic flows – their unique property is to identify moderate and high-risk patients and direct them to triage lines with nurses on board, enabling you to also benefit from video visits to avoid in-person interaction as reported in National Institute of Health.