Health ITWhy You Should Consider Using Telemedicine in Your Healthcare Practice

Have you heard of telehealth before or telemedicine technology?

If you haven’t, and you have a professional connection to the healthcare industry in any way, or you’d like to have more effective and less high-cost medical treatment, then you should familiarize yourself with this new and emerging technology. Building telemedicine, platform use, and a general familiarity should be something that each healthcare entity should think about if they want to remain competitive within their niche.

What is Telemedicine in Practice?

How does telemedicine work? To answer that question, let’s start with telehealth definition, that is the usage of electronic information and telecommunications technologies in providing healthcare treatment. It can apply to things like medical education, clinical data management, telehealth nursing, and the medical system under the US Department of HHS.

How has Telemedicine Impacted Healthcare?

Telemedicine has already had a significant impact on the healthcare system, and it will play a larger role in the coming years.

For instance, Global Market Insights reported that in 2018, the global telehealth market share was $38.3 billion. The expected global market share by 2025 should be greater than $130.5 billion. That means it will grow with over 19% CAGR for 2019-2025. These numbers are truly impressive.

Under the report, for the teleconsultation service sector, the growth rate will be 18.9%, for the tele-education and training service segment – 20.8%, for the tele-home market sector –  19.6%. But the highest growth is expected in the neurology market with 39.8% CAGR. More telemedicine examples exist, but these are a few of the standouts that are the most attention-grabbing.

The Main Telemedicine Benefits

Setting aside those numbers for the moment, if we stop to break down the essence of this new tech, we see that increased access to healthcare for a wider range of individuals is the most vital takeaway.

1. More Accessible Healthcare

Telemedicine platforms broaden your reach by increasing patient access to care. Remote or disabled patients can more easily receive treatment. This is because the doctor can come to the patient through a virtual house call rather than the patient having to go to the doctor in person.

2. Better Treatment

Telehealth improves the efficiency of medicine and makes for better health outcomes. Patients can receive care from any location they are, and the treatment they get is much more personalized. It was conducted the clinical research using telemedicine solutions, according to that the national average for re-admission to hospitals within 30 days following a heart failure episode is 20%. When telehealth monitoring programs have reduced that level to less than 4%. Telemedicine technologies mean more human lives saved with each passing year.

3. The Reduction of Clinical Overhead Costs

Telehealth applications also mean a reduction in clinical overhead. Remote monitoring can cut costs, but a virtual visit can reduce overhead even more for smaller practices. Home monitoring of chronic diseases can reduce hospital visits by as much as 50% by keeping patients stable through daily remote monitoring.

4. Less Clinical Wait Time

Telemedicine can improve care delivery as well. That includes a reduction in clinical wait times and in the time it takes to process patients. Through telehealth, a doctor’s office or clinic can have all the information ready regarding a patient’s condition before they even arrive. Telehealth increases the efficiency of care delivery, allowing healthcare entities to serve more patients faster. HIPAA-compliant telemedicine even exists, for those that have concerns in that area.

5. Lower Costs for Patients and Healthcare Providers

Telemedicine requirements cut the cost of medical services for patients and healthcare providers alike.  Specialists can serve more patients using telehealth technology as well, avoid free time calendar slots between consultations, as single patients are less likely to monopolize their time. Besides, the American Hospital Association reported recently on a telemedicine clinical program that saved 11% in costs and more than tripled ROI for investors.

6. A Reduction in Doctor Burnout

Doctors have a stressful job, as their patients demand a great deal from them. It can be challenging performing that vital of a function day in and day out. Telemedicine technology gives doctors more free time and reduces the chances of them feeling burned out in their profession.

7. Greater Patient Engagement and Organizational Efficiency

Telehealth encourages patients to become more involved in their own treatment. Studies show that a virtual visit engages patients and makes a positive outcome more likely. A patient is less likely to skip an appointment if they know they can visit a doctor remotely. Telemedicine for mental health should also be considered. Patients with anxiety who don’t want to leave the house can more easily see a doctor remotely through this tech.

8. Improvement Of Clinic Work Organization

At the same time, telehealth can improve organizational efficiency for clinics, hospitals, and private practices. Telemedicine video conferencing might be effectively used for specialist collaboration. For example, using physician extenders in a virtual environment can cut costs while generating additional revenue for your practice.

9. Telemedicine For Medical Education And Training

Telemedicine can also be used in various aspects of medical education as it becomes more widespread.

Telemedicine can make education and training for medical students more practical and vivid with help to conduct video-conferencing streamline of surgery, for example. That is a great medical practice that we were not able to have before.

10. High-Profitable Telemedicine Development

The technology that exists today can be applied as by private or public clinics both.  You can deploy the telemedicine platform on desktop or on mobile and even combine it with other technologies. Many telemedicine solutions are not particularly complex and can be quite quickly and qualitatively developed based on common tech stack, integrated with other competitive technologies as we discussed in the telemedicine app development guide. Though telehealth software doesn’t require too complex development process, it can improve incrementally medical services for patients and be profitable for healthcare providers.

If you are a medical entity, though, using it still gives you a competitive advantage, at least for the moment. That is because certain hospitals, clinics, etc. are still hesitant about using this tech. If you feature it and your competitors don’t, you will be seen as being on the cutting edge of healthcare. Many patients will want to go through you for their medical treatment because of this.

The Telemedicine Future is Bright

Over 42% of Millennials have sought medical care through live video to this point, according to a RockHealth survey. This telemedicine market will only grow as the adoption of this tech continues unabated in the years to come.

Patients and providers are both going to become more used to telemedicine in healthcare as we move further into the 21^st century. The growth might seem incremental now, but it is precisely this kind of tech that will render healthcare practically unrecognizable in the next couple of decades.

This articles has been sponsored by Softermii