Not much time has passed since we all experienced the most dreadful phase of our lives when COVID-19 shook the world with panic, grief, and havoc all around. Keeping distance from others became routine, with individuals having to stay home because face-to-face contact carried huge risks when COVID-19 reached its height.
Thank God, we’ve now moved past that tough time and resumed our regular lives like before the pandemic hit. Even though the World Health Organization no longer sees COVID-19 as a global crisis, we still hear about new cases. A Boston University study found that WHO recorded about 1.2 million confirmed infections in December 2023. This means we can’t claim it’s over for good and go back to living without a care.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people stuck to social distancing rules and started new habits to steer clear of physical contact and shield themselves from the dangerous virus. One method that caught on and worked well was telemedicine. This medical service lets doctors diagnose and treat patients from afar using live communication between the patient and healthcare professional.
Telemedicine gained momentum in the early phases of the pandemic hitting the world. This can be evinced from an article published in the National Library of Medicine, the official website of the United States Government. According to an article on this website, the CMS directed health providers on 17th March 2020 when the emergency was declared that “healthcare practitioners should leverage Telemedicine to provide patient care remotely in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics.”.
Core Elements of Telemedicine: How It’s Reshaping Healthcare Software Solutions
Telemedicine has changed custom healthcare software development making services easier to access and more convenient for patients. Now, you can talk to any doctor anywhere from your home without going to see them in person. This means if you live in India and want to consult a heart doctor in the USA or UK, you can do it. That’s what makes telemedicine so great.
But have you ever wondered what makes this possible? The key parts of telemedicine are behind this change. So, it’s crucial to talk about these main elements.
- RPM- Remote Patient Monitoring – Remote patient monitoring allows doctors to consult with their patients and simultaneously monitor their vital health parameters in real time. There is no need for them to physically visit their clinic or hospital; it saves lots of time besides other hazards.
For example, healthcare software development integrated with wearable devices assists in tracking heart rates, blood pressure, sugar level, pulse, etc., and sends the gathered data directly to healthcare providers for further advice.
- Video Consultations – You can call video consultation the backbone of telemedicine, whereby video conferencing software tools like Zoom or Google Meet allow patients to go directly into interaction with doctors on a safe and real-time platform.
Now, video consultations have been more than a boon for patients in rural areas to connect with specialist doctors without moving to cities.
- mHealth Applications– With the increased usage of mHealth applications by people to look after themselves and consult doctors, it has become one of the major components of telemedicine. It will include features like instant appointment scheduling, uploading of medical reports and prescriptions, video conferencing, payment gateway, medication reminders, and health tracking in the palm of your hand.
Some healthcare mobile apps boast advanced functionalities that enable patients to track their symptoms, flash health records, and even converse with a doctor.
- EHR Integration – Another major advantage of having a telemedicine solution is its integration ability with various innovative tools such as Electronic Health Records and electronic medical record software, including third-party applications. This will provide doctors with real-time access to patient’s previous medical history and current health conditions. EHR and EMR integration with telemedicine pave the way for improved and more accurate diagnosis and creating personalized treatment plans during virtual visits
- Secure Data Transmission – Since telemedicine is all about remote patient consultation, data security, and privacy becomes paramount here. Hence, as developers, you must ensure to implementation of robust data encryption measures HIPAA-compliant protocols ensure that patient data is safely transmitted and stored during virtual interactions.
The end-to-end data security and encryption in telemedicine solutions help to ensure that it’s stored with utmost confidentiality and care, similar to what doctors provide patients.
So, we can derive the conclusion that telemedicine is a transformative force that came as a wave during the COVID-19 pandemic and now revolutionizing every aspect of the healthcare and medical field. You can notice that this paradigm shift is the result of telemedicine services getting aligned with innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, and augmented and virtual reality.
How Healthcare Software Solutions Are Reaping the Benefits?
Increased Accessibility and More Convenience
So as we discussed earlier in this article, telemedicine can provide patients with enhanced accessibility and better convenience to all patients; especially those living in rural remote areas. There cannot be a doubt that it has broken geographical barriers by allowing you to connect and consult with doctors from any corner of the globe instantly and have face-to-face interaction using your device.
Instant Data Sharing and Monitoring
Telemedicine software tools use real-time data sharing and monitoring to facilitate seamless real-time collection, sharing, and analysis of data toward remote patient monitoring. You can monitor data immediately and note down the vital signs of patients to pass the information to your doctor. It helps in timely interventions and helps to treat emergency and critical cases where a patient’s life is at risk. You will be pleased to note that here artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms provide predictive analytics, enabling early diagnosis and more personalized treatment plans based on continuous data streams.
Secure and Scalable Infrastructure
Telemedicine software development is likely to raise security-related concerns, especially regarding sensitive patient information. We are all familiar with that. Hence, you are necessarily required to implement such data protection policies and regulations like HIPAA. You can also look toward the integration of multi-factor authentication and blockchain technology for transaction security and overall enhanced transparency. Since you are building applications using cloud computing, you can further gain improved scalability and handle large volumes of data seamlessly.
AI-Driven Diagnostics and Virtual Assistant
You can use AI-driven algorithms to screen patient symptoms, medical history, and diagnostic images. In short, they help healthcare providers with accurate diagnoses and make informed decisions on how to continue with further treatment. Artificial intelligence also receives ample support from machine learning and natural language processing solutions, enhancing patient experience and providing automated responses to frequently asked questions. AI has also helped significantly in minimizing the workload of the administrative staff with task automation.
A New Era of Collaborative Care
Telemedicine platforms are supportive of engaging different healthcare providers in collaboration for a multi-disciplinary approach toward patient care. Primary care physicians, specialists, and even mental health professionals can share on one platform with integrated systems. This not only streamlines communication but also ensures comprehensive care for the patient.
Conclusion
We would like to conclude our core discussion on telemedicine and its impact on custom healthcare software development with a few interesting statistics and numbers. According to Statista, telemedicine has saved about 82 minutes per year for patients to make medical appointments in Australia. Similarly, according to the statistics website, approximately, 116 million doctors worldwide are using telemedicine to consult patients online.
You will also be happier to note that 74% of millennials prefer virtual consultation with doctors in comparison to physical visits, according to GlobalMEd Report. So what do all these positive numbers and figures suggest?
They indicate that telemedicine has a bright future and it is reshaping healthcare software development by making healthcare more accessible, efficient, and patient-centric.
As the editor of the blog, She curate insightful content that sparks curiosity and fosters learning. With a passion for storytelling and a keen eye for detail, she strive to bring diverse perspectives and engaging narratives to readers, ensuring every piece informs, inspires, and enriches.
