Improving Patient Care With Telemedicine Technology

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is changing the lives of patients by making healthcare more accessible than ever before. The Internet is completely changing the way people look at managing their health. As technology advances, individuals can integrate telemedicine more seamlessly. For example, the Apple Watch has the capability to track heart rates and feed it to smart phones. This information can be sent to primary care physicians to give them real time data on how their patient’s body is performing. Patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease now can be monitored more closely with the help of wearable health devices and interactive patient portals.

Scheduling and completing appointments is now easier than ever before. Patients can log on and send an email rather than call and speak with someone directly. They can schedule an appointment from an automated calendar rather than do so with a medical secretary. Patients can complete a follow up health survey with questions related to their in-office visit a few weeks after the fact rather than return to the office for a follow up visit. Conversely, a physician can answer a handful of emails much faster than they can see the same number of patients since each would need to come in, check in, confirm their information, make their payment, get their vitals taken, speak with the physician, debrief with an assistant, pay for their visit, and schedule the next one. A virtual visit is as easy as answering a few questions or reading a message. The process is much easier than in-person visits. This encourages patients to check in with their doctors more frequently. Therefore, patients should be able to sustain a better level of health (Rupp, 2017; Sanyal, 2018).