Why now?
With such technological advances as the replacement of analog forms of communication with digital forms, combined with falling costs of these technologies, interest has been sparked in its use in formulating new and innovative ways of delivering health care. The Internet has permeated telemedicine through email, teleconsultations, teleconferencing, video and digital imagery. This is great groundwork for what is coming in the future. Biometric devices that measure anything from blood pressure, blood glucose, and heart-rate monitors are being increasingly used in e-care because of the constant feeding of information to health care centers. Here are a few examples of the usefulness of telemedicine in the real world:
- Takes health care to the patient and allows hospitals and doctors to expand their reach beyond the walls of the institution. Because of primary provider shortages in both rural and urban areas, this improves patient access to this type of health care in these areas. There is the potential to treat millions of new patients, especially important in the wake of the Affordable Health Care Act, which added millions to health care rolls.
- Improved quality. Studies have shown that telemedicine was as good as an in-person consult. But with mental health and Intensive Care Units, telemedicine delivered a superior product with better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction.
- Patient demand. E-care reduces patient travel time with its accompanying stress. The past 15 years of studies have confirmed patient support for telemedicine services.
- Cost efficiencies. It has been found that e-care lowers the cost of health care and increases efficiency through technology and better control of chronic diseases, reduces or eliminates travel time.
- Constant monitoring. Physicians and therapists can monitor discharged patients and track recovery using communication devices.
- Research has shown that telemedicine may have many important positive outcomes. There are fewer and shorter hospital stays, fewer readmissions, better following of aftercare treatments at home, and faster recovery periods as compared to patients without remote monitoring.
- Other types of communication afforded between respective staffs. This way, expert information is shared in real time when it counts most, as in an emergency.