As a technologist in health, it’s astounding to witness the revolution that has gripped how we offer and receive our care propelled by a quantum leap in telehealth. Beyond an early debut as an expedient substitute during the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has today and more than ever sought to cement its status as a transformative driver that changes the face of healthcare and rewrites the terms in the relationship between patient and provider.
These are things like specialist consults that a rural patient might receive from the comforts of home, or the chronic patient whose disease is managed through remote monitoring and virtual follow-up. What follows are but a few illustrations of ways in which telehealth bridges geographical chasms, extends access to care, and cedes more control to the patient in their own healthcare journey.
With my software development and data analytics background, I appreciate how this techno-change was made possible. From secure video conferencing to remote patient monitoring devices, and then again to integrated electronic health records-the tools are facilitative of seamless, effective virtual care.
The novel application of telehealth exceeds beyond mere convenience, as it gives rise to a myriad of benefits to both patients and providers. For patients, telehealth affords the following benefits:
- Enhanced Access to Care: Telehealth alleviates geographic limitations. For patients in remote locations or underserved areas in rural areas, telehealth serves as a means for patients to access specialists and care.
- Convenience and Flexibility: For patients, virtual visits saves them from traveling, and are considerably less burdensome especially to those patients with mobility challenges or patients with chronic conditions.
- More Engaged Patients: The telehealth model offers patients the ‘power’ to take control of their health outcomes as they are iteratively learning to become more proactive in their care, as they are often monitoring their conditions from the comforts of their own homes with real-time telehealth services.
For Providers:
- Increased Reach and Productivity: Telehealth gives practitioners the ability to reach increased patients than they normally would see, and without the commute, there is significant increase in productive outcomes for all stakeholders involved.
- Improved Care Coordination: The telehealth model offers providers ease of communication, sharing, and exchange of information among providers; thus, the improved outcomes can be related to increased communication.
- Decreased Cost of Care: Telehealth leads to decreased costs associated with care through avoidance of unnecessary hospital admissions or readmissions, and improved resource utilization.
On the other hand, this wide diffusion of telehealth has equally raised a variety of challenges that are necessary to keep under close scrutiny:
- Ensuring Equitable Access: It remains important to consider how best to assure equity in access across the digital divide and access to technology with internet connectivity so that the full potential of telehealth is realized by all populations.
- Data Security and Privacy: A virtual care environment requires protection for patient data and maintenance of HIPAA compliance. Strong security measures will be required along with ethics in data practice.
- Integration of Telehealth into the Prevailing Workflows: Seamless integration of telehealth into the prevailing workflow and systems of healthcare is paramount to its implementation in an efficient and effective way.
The future of health is undoubtedly carved with the continued growth of telehealth. This new landscape beckons us forward to undertake challenges that are not being met, to welcome innovation, and to truly make patient-centeredness a focus of care. We have the ability to use telehealth to extend our reach and help create a more available, equal, and patient-empowering healthcare system for all.