What is Telemedicine?

It’s 2024, and more than ever before, telemedicine/telehealth has become a buzzword in the healthcare space and beyond it. Statistics show that this increase did not start this year. Between 2019 and 2021, there was a more than 400% increase in the use of telehealth among physicians.

What is telemedicine in healthcare?

There are several definitions of telemedicine in healthcare because many people and organizations have attempted to explain what it means. But the most holistic of them is the WHO definition of telemedicine:

According to World Health Organization; Global strategy on digital health 2020-2025. Geneva, 2021:

“The delivery of healthcare services, where distance is a critical factor, by all healthcare professionals using information and communications technologies for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and the continuing education of health care workers, with the aim of advancing the health of individuals and communities.”

World Health Organization (WHO)

It boils down to one simple thing, telemedicine uses tech to treat, prevent diseases, and improve the health of individuals and communities.

Medical News Today also answers the question, “What does telemedicine mean?”

Their definition describes telemedicine as a term that “covers the use of technology to deliver clinical care at a distance.”

When was Telemedicine invented?

Modern Telemedicine started in the early twentieth century when heart rhythms were transmitted over the phone in the Netherlands. By 1920, radio consultations had started in Europe. In the 1940s, the transmission of radiographic images had commenced between cities in Pennsylvania.
In 1960, NASA used telemedicine to monitor astronauts in flight on a mission. It was also around this time that clinicians working at the University of Nebraska transmitted video and images for medical purposes.

Types of Telemedicine

Even though there are many ways to classify telemedicine, there are generally 3 major types based on the type of service delivered:

• Store-and-forward: This involves the sharing and storage of health information for review at a later time by a healthcare provider. Store-and-forward is useful in specialities like radiology and pathology for remotely viewing images and results.
• Remote monitoring: In remote monitoring, healthcare providers can monitor the patient remotely. This is very effective for parameters like blood pressure, blood sugar, and pulse rate. Equipment and monitoring devices such as blood pressure cuffs, blood glucose monitors, or even pulse oximeters collect all the information. As the patient uses these devices, healthcare providers can monitor the parameters.
• Real-time interactive services: Telemedicine provides interactive services that allow providers and patients to communicate in real-time. Interactive services allow for consultations, follow-up visits, examinations and face-to-face interaction irrespective of distance.

Telemedicine vs Telehealth

Telehealth is not the same as Telemedicine, even though some sources might use them interchangeably.

According to the AAFP, Telehealth encompasses a broader scope of healthcare services that are delivered remotely, while telemedicine is specific for clinical services. Thus, telehealth can accommodate nonclinical services such as medical education, public health education, and even administrative meetings.
This position is further corroborated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States, which also includes pharmaceutical services, nursing care, and social worker services as part of the scope of telehealth.

In simple terms, telemedicine focuses strictly on the consultation between the doctor and patient, while telehelath involves other things outside the doctor-patient relationship. So telehealth can get labs to come take your samples at home, process and deliver the results, and bring prescribed medications to your doorstep.

How Telemedicine Works

On a larger scale, Telehealth works by creating a virtual connection between the patient and the healthcare service provider. There are various ways that telehealth providers achieve this:

1. Via a website
2. Via mobile apps
3. Via calls, either video or voice
4. Via monitoring devices

These service providers typically require you to sign up and from there you can access medical services. They may also require that you get some of their monitoring devices so they can monitor your health parameters remotely.

Why Telemedicine is Important

Telemedicine hit the 80% adoption mark in 2022. This means that many people want to use it, and the only reason for this is that there are so many benefits patients and clinicians derive from it. These benefits cut across different sectors, and a few of them are discussed below.

1. 24/7 Access to Healthcare Professionals: In 2020, COVID-19 showed us that there are limitations to traditional medicine practice when distance is a barrier. What telemedicine does is reduce these limitations and bridge the gap between the healthcare provider and the patient. With several online medical networks, patients now have 24/7 access to doctors and other healthcare specialists when they need them
2. It is the future of the healthcare industry: As information and expertise move from continent to continent, there is a need to share knowledge and skills. With this new technology, distance is no longer a barrier. For instance, in Havard, telemedicine is now useful in teaching medical students. In fact, they have even proceeded to develop additional virtual speciality electives.
3. Ease and Convenience: In a country like Nigeria where the doctor-patient ratio is 1:9083, coming to the hospital can be very uninviting, With long queues and delays before consultation. Many patients would prefer to skip all that and get instant consultations online, especially when they know they would get the same level of high-quality care. Ease and convenience are major driving forces behind telehealth.
4. Medical access in rural areas: With just a phone and internet connection, many people in rural areas can now access medical care. They can get access to top-rated professionals who would have been otherwise almost impossible to see in person due to distance, logistics and long queues.
5. Management of people with chronic conditions: Telehealth makes it possible to both monitor and communicate with patients who have chronic conditions. Results can be obtained from BP cuffs, and glucometers, and used to make decisions in real-time.
6. Management of the elderly: Moving elderly people around for medical consultations might be difficult. There are also many associated risks with this stressful movement in the elderly such as falls, hospital-associated infections due to weaker immunity and the mental stress of waiting to see the doctor. Telemedicine takes all these away by directly connecting the doctor to the patient from the comfort of their home. It’s no surprise therefore that in a study recently reported by the CDC, researchers found that the majority of the people who used telehealth services were elderly people aged 65 and above.

Conclusion

Telemedicine is here to stay. It has changed the landscape of healthcare and will cause further disruptions in the coming years. The question is no longer “Why telemedicine?” Instead, it has shifted to, “Why not telemedicine? Can it be telemedicine, and why is it not telemedicine?”