Telemedicine: What Does It Consist Of?

Telemedicine is a concept and application of healthcare services that has already taken hold. It has its defenders and its detractors. Here we will explain what it is and its applications.

The quickest definition of telemedicine comes from its etymological meaning: in Greek, the prefix “tele” means “distance”. Therefore, to  speak of telemedicine means to speak of medicine at a distance,  and more precisely of the provision of a service related to health at a distance.

This definition opens up a wide range of situations that could be considered as part of telemedicine.

This ranges from an operation where a robot is directed, from one part of the world, by a doctor who is physically in another country, to the simple act of giving a web conference between professionals to discuss a clinical case.

The operation of surgical robots has been possible remotely since 2001.  It was during this year that a cholecystectomy – the removal of the gallbladder – of a French patient took place through a device directed by a doctor who was in New York.

However, distance communication between professionals was already a daily occurrence. We believe that since the mid-1990s, large clinics and hospitals around the world have benefited from real-time connections to analyze complex patient cases.

With the massive irruption of the Internet, and with the presence of the Internet of Things (on the telephone, on television, in vehicles), the concept of e-health has been added to that of telemedicine. Unlike the latter, the e-health necessarily involves the use of internet as a means for medicine.

Some applications of telemedicine

Among the different uses of telemedicine, the most important are:

Electronic medical history

Contrary to the traditional medical history on paper, the potentiality of recording patients on a computer medium is gigantic.

Thanks to telemedicine,  we have been able to start storing the medical history on electronic devices and the cloud on the Internet,  so that it is accessible from anywhere and even to the patient from home, with a key. The ease of this mechanism improves the speed of healing.

Remote diagnostics

Thanks to telemedicine,  consultation between a patient and a doctor who are at distant geographical points is possible.  Inter-consultation between professionals even becomes fluid thanks to this modality. For geographically inaccessible areas, this is a way to improve equality in access to health care.

Monitoring

Actions to control vital parameters, such as blood pressure or oxygen saturation do not necessarily require a natural person to do so constantly.

With telemedicine, it is possible to perform these measurements remotely,  saving resources and saving time for professionals with patients so that they can carry out other higher priority activities.

Distance education

The training of human resources in health can also be based on telemedicine. Thanks to internet connections, you can attend classes or even complete years of study from anywhere on the planet.

Benefits of telemedicine

We will now see, in broad outline, what are the advantages of the application of telemedicine, to then analyze its problems:

• Reduction of inequalities. With remote connections, we can treat people who are geographically isolated, for example.
• Speed ​​increase. By being able to inter-consult specialists in other places on the planet, in a few minutes, the times for establishing diagnoses are reduced.
• Greater participation. Telemedicine makes it possible to integrate different points of view on a clinical process. And it allows you to do it in real time. We therefore enrich the path to the health of a person or a population.
• Statistics. The electronic storage of medical history, the recording of vaccines on computer media, the side effect reports which are stored in the internet cloud, increase the possibility of generating statistics almost in real time, to know what that it happens with health. These statistics are the basis for decision making in terms of public health.

Telemedicine problems

Now let’s see what are the current difficulties of telemedicine:

• Confidentiality. A big topic of discussion in this area is the preservation of data confidentiality. It is important that the electronic medical history is protected and that the overarching axis of the doctor-patient relationship is respected.
• Ethics of remote care. Even if it is carried out by videoconference, medical attention remains an act linked to the ethics of professionals. Even the World Medical Association has a statement on ethics in telemedicine.
• Bad infrastructure. While the countries that would most need telemedicine are the underdeveloped countries, they do not have sufficient network infrastructure and connections to use it, due to their economic conditions.
• Cultural changes. Professionals and patients alike are ultimately subject to change. This change lies in the beliefs and usual health care practices when they are found in the case of telemedicine. The adaptation process can be long and lead to mistrust.

Ultimately, although we could find some drawbacks, telemedicine  offers very important advantages in diagnostics, disease information and education. It will likely continue to evolve along with the technology.