Telemedicine is becoming popular and a common name in the households. According to a survey, futuristic have predicted that nearly 65% of the doctors will remote services and consultation using healthcare application programs. Patients in need of medical attention will use mobile devices to communicate with doctors to seek treatment. The rate of using mobile apps for telemedicine has doubled in the last five years. Healthcare providers are collaborating internationally with healthcare institutions and doctors to provide efficient services and expand their reach to customers.
Why is the need for Telemedicine apps?
Telemedicine refers to rendering health-related services to the people located in the remote and distant areas. Telemedicine services are provided using telecommunications and information technology on mobile devices and smart phones with an internet connection.
The history of Telemedicine goes long back before this particular term was coined. Around the 1900s, people of Australia used telemedicine services by using the radio. Hugo Gernsback, in the year 1925 was an inventor who gave the term teledactyl and predicted about remote services by the doctors. The main aim of telemedicine was to render the medical treatment to the people in underdeveloped countries and underprivileged populations who have a lack of medical facilities. But after the introduction of the internet and enhanced Smartphone users, it has become a popular means to avail healthcare services from home. People prefer these services so that they do not have to wait in the hospitals queues and waiting rooms in the hospitals.
Services by telemedicine apps
- Real-time consultation: The patients are able to communicate with the doctor for consultation with the help of telemedicine applications. The doctor and patients video conference and in case the doctor needs any advice from clinicians he can do so by adding the specialist as a member of the ongoing video conference.
- Remote services: In this approach mobile and other technological devices are used by the patients for self-monitoring. Here patients record the vitals and other health-related records and provide this data to the doctors. This method is used for conditions like asthma, diabetes where patients can record and send data to the clinician. It also helps in encouraging self-care among patients.
- Store and forward: In this service, there is no need for the presence of both doctors and patients at the same time. The vitals of the patients is recorded and sent to the doctor for offline analysis. There is a systematic electronic health record of the patients that are transmitted to the doctors to seek consultation. These services are used mainly in a situation like skin related diseases. This treatment is based on the previous diagnosis and history of patients.
- Mobile health: Mobile health refers to use of phones, mobile devices, and wearable device to record and store health data. This system was originally designed for the developing countries to record and send the vitals. But soon as a convenient medium it becomes popular in the developed countries. This practice helps individual record data and encourages self-care.
Challenges in the telemedicine
Although there are multiple benefits of the telemedicine services, there are certain areas where these services lag behind. Mentioned below are the challenges faced by this technology.
- Data security: the healthcare devices record all the information of patients. This information is very important and confidential. There are risks in the cloud infrastructure of data theft and data breach. The medical data of patients should be encrypted.
- Compliance of HIPAA rules: Although the telehealth is becoming popular among the population all over the world. It faces health regulatory issues. The organizations making regulations have not put telehealth in concern and the doctors face licensing and regulatory issue to practice in certain locations. The doctors may have a license to practice in his state but in the state where the patient is residing.
- Medical reimbursement: One of the major challenges faced by telemedicine apps are reimbursement issues. State law does not allow reimbursement on all of the services provided by the telehealth. Only certain services are covered under this umbrella and it becomes a reason for loss for the healthcare providers.
SISGAIN is a globally recognized applications and software development company offering healthcare application development services on the global platform. The company strives to provide cutting edge applications to contributing the company to achieve their business goal. We have more than 10 years of experience in the industry and delivered many successful projects to the reputed clients in this industry.