This archive report was first published on 3 July 2020.
Telemedicine: A Lifeline for Healthcare During COVID-19 ¶
Published on July 3, 2020
As COVID-19 continues to spread, health systems around the world are facing unprecedented challenges. In the US, new surges of infections in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida indicate that the pandemic is nowhere close to being reigned in.
Given the ongoing threat of COVID-19, hospitals and medical professionals must find ways to ensure minimal disruption to healthcare services. Telemedicine, or telehealth, could be instrumental in helping achieve this goal.
Telemedicine involves the delivery of healthcare services through telecommunication tools and automated technologies. This approach can lead to increased productivity for medical staff, improved health outcomes, and reduced burden on hospitals.
One of the key benefits of telemedicine is its ability to increase productivity for medical staff. By allowing patients to collect key information and measurements themselves, nurses can manage many more patients at any given time. This can be particularly beneficial for the elderly, who may require the support of a caregiver or family member to ensure accurate measurements.
Telemedicine also enables the use of medication e-prescribing, which can reduce medication errors and improve medication adherence for patients. By utilizing easily accessible e-prescriptions, providers can track whether or not patients are complying with recommended dosages.
Despite the best efforts of nurses, doctors, and other medical staff to stay on top of everything, failures are bound to happen if they have too much on their plate. With telemedicine solutions, facilities can utilize automated monitoring systems that can flag urgent patient issues. This allows medical staff to allocate valuable time to serious cases where hands-on intervention is needed.
Studies have shown that telemedicine can lead to improved health outcomes. In one instance, there was a 26 percent reduction in the death rate of ICU patients subjected to telemonitoring. Additionally, the high transmissibility of COVID-19 puts a lot of pressure on hospitals and clinics to enforce social distancing measures. The ability to deliver care services remotely removes a huge burden in several ways:
- Reduced contact between staff and infected patients.
- Less likelihood of infected patients coming into contact with people as they travel to the hospital.
- More capacity to accommodate non-COVID patients who are afflicted with equally serious conditions.
- Spending reductions on personal protective equipment, especially those that are one-time use.
However, there are still some barriers that stand in the way of ideal implementation. These include reimbursements, data privacy issues, hospital bureaucracy, and better awareness and knowledge. To overcome these challenges, governments and healthcare providers must work together to provide financial support to uninsured individuals, update relevant laws to ensure data privacy, and fast-track telemedicine integration.
It would be a mistake to abandon innovative efforts after COVID-19 subsides. Whatever progress is made on this front, healthcare providers and the government must do everything they can to maintain the momentum. Investments in hospitals' IT capabilities, telemedicine staff training, and the adoption of new policies must continue.
