When it comes to health care, the word “remote” gives the wrong impression. Telemedicine, also known as virtual medicine or remote medicine, refers to medical care services provided by advanced solutions such as video, applications, imaging, artificial intelligence, and of course, telephone. In this case, remote only means that two people are not actually in the same room, which does not mean that the two people have no contact. In fact, studies have shown that when telemedicine is carried out by clinical experts, it has the ability to do anything, from influencing results and reducing costs to keep patients calm, especially during the difficult period such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Telemedicine creates relationships: as providers, we know that one of the biggest obstacles to healthcare is to allow patients to find and establish relationships with care providers. A quarter of Americans do not have a primary care provider, and that number is growing. By allowing people to remotely create and establish a trusted therapeutic alliance with clinicians, we have increased the number of connections that may not exist at all.
Patients receive care when and where they need it: telemedicine integrates medical care into the lives of patients. Since patients do not have to come to receive treatment in person, they can get treatment at the time, place and way they want. This is an increasingly important factor for nine out of ten Americans who use the Internet.
Telemedicine is flexible and can promote continuous care: telemedicine has two ways of working. As a supplement or alternative to face-to-face care, it gives providers the flexibility to change their care model according to the needs, organizational capabilities and resource availability of the patient population. In addition to helping providers solve changing problems, telemedicine also promotes maintenance. When continuing care is needed, it can make health care a part of the patient’s daily life. Nursing becomes an alarm on a smartphone or on a computer instead of going to a doctor, which makes daily care applications simple and easy to solve.
In short, the possibilities of telemedicine are expanding. Now that we know how virtual health and clinical expertise work together, we are more capable than ever of humanizing healthcare, even if we cannot be in the same place.
