Since the beginning of the epidemic, telemedicine and related services have been at the highest level in history. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of telemedicine appointments between patients and medical staff increased by 30.2% from June to November last year. The CDC also predicts that such services will continue to expand their coverage as the covid-19 pandemic continues. An important aspect of telemedicine is telemedicine monitoring. Undoubtedly, telemedicine monitoring has many benefits for patients, such as improved accessibility and convenience, but it is also helpful to medical staff.
Telemedicine monitoring allows continuous monitoring of patient biometric data. This is an improvement of traditional examinations, because these examinations depend on the current physical state of the patients. With the help of telemedicine monitoring, medical staff can obtain a stable flow of patient data, so that they can find problems and patterns, which allows them to solve problems faster and develop more data-driven treatment plans. This remote arrangement benefits patients who may have difficulty reaching clinics or hospitals. Some examples include people quarantined due to COVID-19 symptoms or people with autoimmune diseases. Pregnant women will also benefit from telemedicine monitoring systems.
More and more nurses are being trained in the digital world to become primary health care providers. In fact, nurses not only play a vital role in the use of telemedicine monitoring system, but also play an important role in the whole telemedicine. Telemedicine nurses are responsible for monitoring, educating and following up patients at home. Through telemedicine monitoring, they can collect relevant data that will be used for patient diagnosis and potential treatment plans. Providing telemedicine monitoring and other remote health services can improve the efficiency of primary health care. Therefore, specialists can devote more time to more urgent cases.
Since the telemedicine monitoring system can now be used for data collection and patient diagnosis, patients no longer need to go to clinics or hospitals for treatment, which reduces the risk of infection for patients and medical staff. Telemedicine monitoring is also a key factor in reducing rehospitalization, because it enables medical staff to better manage patients early in continuous care and after discharge.
In general, telemedicine monitoring decreases the need for patients to be present in person. It makes medical institutions safer for medical staff, which is particularly important in the context of the continued spread of COVID-19 pandemic.