Telemedicine Apps: The Game-changer in Healthcare System To Tackle COVID-19 Crisis With Virtual Communication

Alexander S Published On July 8th, 2023 Product News & Updates

The COVID-19 has shaken the world, with new challenges from being in quarantine to not stepping out of home, many new situations and circumstances have arisen. The outbreak of corona has created a global health crisis and precautions taken to reduce the spread, social distancing has become a part of normal living today.

The healthcare staffs are the frontline care providers; taking increased infection risk, and working continuously in this global medical emergency. In such a scenario, the healthcare segment must move ahead to handle the other chronic ailments, and difficulties to reduce transmission during the pandemic. Telehealth is the new hope of handling the new circumstances.

A Snippet on Telehealth

Telehealth is a collection of methods for enhancing health care and health education delivery using electronics and telecommunication technologies. It also, delivers health services, including virtual medical.

It is the practice of medicine using technology to deliver care to a patient located at a distant site. It refers specifically to remote clinical services and non-clinical services.

The Importance of Telehealth

At the global crisis, Telehealth once used rarely becomes essential as it serves the purpose of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Moreover the primary necessity of Telehealth at this crisis is first, patients with cold and flu like symptoms can be screened, guided and receive care at home rather the visiting the hospital. The next need is to provide the routine care for patients with chronic ailments, as they are more susceptible on exposure to virus. The most important aspect of Telehealth is that it saves the risk of virus exposure to medical professionals and staffs.

Telemedicine benefits people, physicians, and the health system and allows patients to stay at home and interact with physicians and reduce the potential spread of the virus.

Telemedicine benefits people, physicians, and the health system and allows patients to stay at home and interact with physicians and reduce the potential spread of the virus. 

Changing Needs Due to COVID-19

The restriction in daily life due to COVID-19 has led many people to prefer the Telehealth to get access to medical facilities for treatments and care. At the same time minimizing risk to health care workers is also the prime objective of why many clinics and hospitals choose Telemedicine as a proactive measure.

“We know COVID-19 can be very harmful and even fatal for people with compromised health, and by using video visits, physicians can help these patients avoid coronavirus exposure.”

Words of G. Cameron Deemer, of Dr First.com, emphasizing on the need for Telemedicine.

From the recent survey conducted of US patients by Lisa Hedges, of Software Advice, they found 84 % are more likely to select healthcare providers offering Telemedicine. Health-tech experts say that telemedicine in the US can be used instead of waiting for an appointment with a doctor, people now can opt whether to seek medical advice via chatbot or chat and call medical experts.

What the Healthcare Providers seek from Telemedicine Apps

Telemedicine and e-health are now evolving with technology. By using platforms like zoom telemedicine, and features like patient-doctor chat it is easy for doctors to evaluate a patient’s symptoms remotely and reduce the hardship of doctors on non-critical health issues thus gives them enough time to treat the critical issues.

Healthcare communications between patients and telemedicine doctors depend on solutions that enable

• Responsive one-to-one chat
• Familiar feel UI
• Send and receive messages with no delay
• Notify people about the online presence of doctors
• Help users to read the prescription or receipt
• Facilitate a real-time video call and conferencing
• HIPAA compliant video consultation software

Technical Imitations the Telemedicine Market Faces

Healthcare providers require collecting and storing personal health data, building trust with people to use the telemedicine software is an utmost need of the hour. If once people get comfort, then it becomes easier for health care providers to proceed with these services. The telemedicine platforms possess limitations with the evolving technology, though the chats may not require storing any protected health information, telemedicine regulations, data privacy and security becomes a must. 

Health care providers must use HIPPA compliant chat api and video conferencing API as it makes the telemedicine service more secure and safe. The Telehealth apps modalities must embed the integration of healthcare video conferencing SDK for reliability.

As the number of users checking-in on telemedicine video chat solutions is increasing, the health care providers face challenge on the need to decide whether to use go for dedicated infrastructure or opt a reliable, and secure and scalable solution.

Using a hosted service can drastically ease the load on any health care organization that now finds itself in need of a rapid telemedicine solution.

The telemedicine future shall be capable of offering features like real-time notifications, availability of testing kits and local testing locations online in addition to existing responsive, reliable chat services. The telemedicine apps may also alert users to know about new guidance from hospitals and WHO.

Significant Benefits of Telemedicine Platforms

The major benefits of Telemedicine video conferencing platforms are

1. Risk Reduction: Telemedicine for doctors reduces the risk of exposure on health care workers and prevents patients from the potential virus spread.

2. Improves the Quality of Care Delivery: With a secure one-on-one chat, the remote monitoring and care of patients are possible without compromising on the quality of service.

3. Cost Reduction: The remote screening, monitoring, and symptom diagnosis help people to reduce the cost they invest in health care.

4. Scalability:  Utilizing a telehealth platform-as-a-service solution also means ensuring future scalability. In other words, you can be confident that your services can expand along with your rates of patient membership or adherence.

5. User Engagement: The real-time telemedicine healthcare is preferred both by healthcare providers and patients as it is a two-way interaction between a person and a provider using live video streaming.

Telehealth as An ultimate Solution

The challenges we are facing in the current situation demands the need for a medical solution that is optimal, effective, and less risky. TelehealthPaas, platform-as-a-solution reduces the struggle of health care providers in addressing the technology hurdles. While there is a long list of tools and products with video conferencing software for healthcare, the Telehealth market choosing the most reliable and effective solution at the pandemic situation is the task many health care providers now possess.