Top 10 Benefits Of Telehealth As A Technology Trend

Alexander S Published On November 15th, 2024 Tech Talks

Did you notice that the last time you visited a healthcare facility, it took only around 15 minutes to consult with your doctor? But the overall time spent for the visit was an average of 2 hours. 

This is one of the major downsides of traditional healthcare methods, where people had to wait long to get medical attention or travel miles for the right facility. To resolve this right, technology has come into help, to create the most convenient way of medical care – Telehealth.

In this article, let’s quickly analyze what telehealth is all about and the many benefits it offers to patients and healthcare providers.

What Is Telehealth?

Telehealth is the modern way of accessing medical care using technology – without the need to meet a doctor in-person. It is an online healthcare model in which you can connect to your doctors or healthcare professionals from the comfort of your own home. 

According to World Health Organization, you can use telehealth to:

• Access medical care when and where you need it
• Make use of technology to improve healthcare
• Break geographical barriers to medical access
• Improve health conditions

Who Can Benefit From Telehealth? 

Telecommunication chat is common for all – but considering the need, it is highly beneficial for people who belong the below categories:

• People with temporary health issues or ongoing conditions
• People who live in rural areas, where medical amenities are in deficit
• Patients who need to visit a specialist, but have limited access to the particular expert. 
• Patients with mental health issues
• People who have concerns with physically moving from one place to another. 
• Pregnant women

What Types Of Care Can Patients Get Using Telehealth?

Both temporary or ongoing health conditions can be treated with Telehealth. A few of them include:

Acute Health Conditions	Chronic Health Conditions	Medical Management
Urgent Care for Cold and Cough Bronchitis Infections Sore Throat Nausea and Vomiting Allergies	Migraine Urinary Tract Infections High Blood Pressure Diabetes  Cholesterol Skin Conditions Post-surgical follow-ups	Prescription Management Medication Management  Virtual Counseling Online Therapy Physical Therapy Occupational Therapy Lab Test and X-rays

What Types Of Information Are Exchanged In Telehealth Conversations?

When you consult a doctor or converse with a medical professional, there is certain sensitive information which has to be shared to get fully guided telehealth care. The types of information can be categorized as the ones sent by the patients and the ones received from the doctors.

Here is a list of what we could expect in the process:

From Patients To Doctors	From Doctors To Patients
Vitals that include Weight, Gender, Age, Blood Pressure, or sugar levels. Images of rashes, wounds, allergies, skin or eye condition. Medical history records like X-rays, CT, or ECGs. Health data journals with previous prescriptions, symptoms, and medications.	Suggestions for improving diet, stress, and mobility. Notifications or reminders related to your treatment plan. Medical care offers and campaigns. Instructions for patients in home-care.

Top Telehealth Benefits For Patients & Healthcare Providers

Benefits For Patients

1. Medical Care In Easy Reach

A patient who is sick or unwell, needs treatment at their comfort, with safety as a priority. Instead of visiting hospitals with a weakness or chronic condition, patients can virtually get the medical assistance they need, with the help of Telehealth. 

In this case, I’d call the COVID situation a perfect example. 

Since the emergence of the pandemic, telehealth has played a huge role in getting the right treatment to patients on time, while safely protecting healthcare providers from any potential spread of the virus.  

2. Improved Patient Outcomes

Telehealth perfectly serves the treatment flow of chronic conditions. It has curbed out the challenges in monitoring high blood pressure, diabetes and heart diseases remotely. 

Patients need not visit healthcare facilities to get their check ups and follow ups done. Rather, he/ she can virtually connect with the medical care providers and get the consultation needed, avoiding no-shows.  

3. Increase in Engagement 

Right from the advent of Telehealth technology, healthcare has become more accessible for patients. Just like people can order food and utilities and get them delivered to home, medical aid is now more accessible, in different ways. 

You can book appointments, write online reviews, set digital reminders. Eventually, you patients can easily engage with healthcare providers to get the right assistance needed. 

4. Reduced Readmissions

Missing out clinic appointments due to mobility challenges or disabilities can be easily bypassed with Telehealth consults. Patients need not unnecessarily commute to ERs and doctor’s clinics for their acute health conditions. 

Similarly, patients who need long-term care need not rent hospital rooms and empty their pockets. They can get assistance from their own location and device, implement instructions and continue the prescribed medications. 

5. Low-cost and Timely Healthcare

Heavy medical expenses used to be one of the major drawbacks of the medical system back in the days. But now, telehealth has restructured the medical practices and has cut down half the cost of traditional office visits. 

In fact, several patients are able to get timely diagnosis and assistance needed, before they develop critical health issues. The number of doctor visit skips have also come down drastically, with telehealth in backing. 

Benefits For Providers

1. Improved Clinical Outcomes

The consistency in telehealth monitoring has brought warning signals about patient health at the right time to healthcare providers. The digitalization of monitoring has surpassed  traditional on-site care outcomes and has drastically improved clinical outcomes. 

2. Lower Mortality Rates

The mortality rates have drastically reduced when remote ICUs were implemented in the medical field. Almost 21 studies showed lower complications and death rates since the launch of remote ICUs. 

3. Consistency In Medical Support

Behavioral therapy or psychotherapy are fields where consistent administering is required to avoid risky behavioral changes in patients. But virtual care has made it easily possible for medical access and monitoring consistency, improving support and help at the right time. 

Types of Telehealth Technology 

Telehealth Care can be done in different ways:

1. Real-Time Interactions: involves direct messaging or live video calls between patients and doctors. Different telemedicine practices include:

• Teleneuropsychology
• Telenursing
• Telerehabilitation
• Telepharmacy

2. Remote Monitoring: Allow doctors or nurses to monitor patient-health consistently 

3. Store and Forward: Exchanges files like reports and scans between patients and specialists

How to Set Up A Telehealth Platform? 

Step 1: Fulfill The Prerequisites

What Your Patient Will Need? 

• Communication Device: Computer, tablet, or mobile device with camera and microphone 
• Monitoring Devices: To measure patient’s blood pressure, blood sugar, and oxygen levels and send the data to telehealth apps
• Internet Connection: Sufficient For Video Bandwidth
• Email Account: To register with your Telehealth Platform 

What Your Telehealth Platform Will Need?

• A Telehealth App: With a Patient Portal, In-app communication, and medical data storage features.

Step 2: Connect Patient Account With Your Telehealth Platform 

• Give patients a quick walkthrough of your telehealth app
• Provide help in registering patient profile to your platform
• Check through if the audio and video in your device and patient’s device are working
• Instruct on how to send messages, media, make calls or book appointments

Step 3: Start Monitoring and Virtual Assistance

• Monitor the vitals or behavioral patterns
• Provide necessary prescriptions 
• Connect to patients for remote support 

Conclusion

MirrorFly, a leading in-app communication provider has been in the industry for almost a decade. It offers highly scalable video, voice, and chat features that will benefit doctors and patients to communicate efficiently within your telehealth apps. To meet your every requirement, we offer both cloud and self-hosted solutions to help you build telehealth apps.

Here are quick perks about our solutions:

MirrorFly Cloud Solution

• Free Chat SDK
• Dedicated cloud servers
• Free trial for 21 days on video and voice call SDKs
• Supports multi-tenancy

MirrorFly Self-hosted Solution

• 100% customizable video, voice, and chat SDKs
• On-premise hosting
• White-label solution
• One-time license fee

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