Telehealth — The next big leap in the healthcare industry?
During the pandemic, every healthcare professional switched over to the routine of providing online consultation with the help of some dedicated software. With that, they were able to address immediate needs of patients without requiring in-person consultations though some might prefer in-person meetings over video consultations, but in the “new normal”, it is a big no-no. Definitely, in-person consultation helps the doctors accurately assess the conditions of patients which in turn gives satisfactory impact for patients while coming out of their consultations. I even watched some of the patients leave with a slight smile.
Even the Government has appreciated the hospitals that transitioned to telehealth. However, most of these online consultations were marked ‘transactional’ by the experts. If someone has a chronic illness and needs deliberate care, then these online consultations won’t help them treat those patients. Connectivity, software crashes/ bugs, and the inexperience of patients using technologies are considered as major hindrances to a fruitful online consultation. Some of these online consultation software displays the patient’s medical history all over the screen which distracts the doctor from getting the patient’s conditions from his perspective. In addition to that, the information that is present on the screen is sometimes very confusing to the patients and this makes the patients feel like having a one-sided conversation which is not appreciated in the healthcare industry.
Will telehealth prosper after the ‘new normal?
As we know that we are slightly getting out of the pandemic phase, now arises the big question: how will telehealth field fare in the future. There might be a lot of drawbacks. But on the other hand, it does great by reducing the need for patients to travel to consult a doctor. This will greatly increase the chances for rural areas to get in touch with the primary health care & specialized doctors at their own time.
The main goal in the future for the telecare field is to shift its nature from transactional to personal. A patient-centric experience given in virtual consultation, removing distractions, connectivity hindrances, and creating high-quality conversations will surely do it. The only thing that we cannot expect from online consultations is the so-called ‘personal touch.
To provide a patient-centric experience, they need to come up with better ways of presenting themselves with the patients virtually. To open up with the patients, they might even think of starting the conversation with a small personal talk. This also helps the doctor understand the patient in a better way and enables them to provide a patient-centric experience.
The role of technology in the betterment of telehealth
The ultimate goal for every telehealth firm is to make the patient who attends the virtual consultations feel the same kind of experience they would get if they were in the room with the doctor. Technology can provide support by
- Making the patient records appear more sophisticated and less distractive for the doctors.
- Voice recording feature can be given for doctors to take important notes. This would probably help the doctors focus on the patients rather than their keyboard.
- Smart bands can also be made use of to determine the current medical data of the patients. This will help assess the patient.
How InterSystems is making it happen
The scope of improving the current telehealth systems with InterSystems is limitless due to which it is being called the reliable and interoperable DBMS. So, I have just listed some of the innovative ways companies used InterSystems to increase their telehealth systems efficiency.
Telehealth through social media
Private healthcare delivery organizations in China after analyzing several people came up with the idea of using social media like WeChat to get appointments, payment applications for bill payment, and InterSystems TrakCare healthcare for database management. Together they managed to build a successful integrated healthcare service which helps them to give a more personal telehealth experience to their patients.
Creating Connected Health Applications for Care Redesign
Clinical laboratory software developing firm known as Rhodes are using InterSystems IRIS for Health on their e-MyLabCollect application to provide complete patient information and workflow tracking for technicians collecting samples across locations. It also prints instrument-ready specimen labels at the point of collection, thus eliminating the need to relabel at the lab, this in turn makes the process much efficient and reduces potential errors. Now along with online consultations, clinical scans & other tests can also be scheduled online.
Telehealth may have reached the limelight due to the pandemic, but it sure has a lot of positives and room for growth. There is a popular saying that ‘’Change is the only constant”. May we all hope that the telehealth system also changes into something that can readily give medical attention to everyone around the globe.
