Introduction
Senior citizens can get the benefits from telehealth with the use of technology. Telehealth refers to a variety of healthcare services offered virtually. Telemedicine, virtual visits, remote monitoring, tele-doc, video call, and similar/other terms in a categorized approach fall under telehealth.
This medication made it very easy for rural and underserved areas to receive advanced treatments since they did not need to travel miles for treatment because of the advent of virtual healthcare. Doctors and patients can have conversations virtually and discuss the treatment of diseases. This blog will tell you how telemedicine improves remote elderly patient care through its unique benefits.
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine has started to be one of the most important changes in healthcare that enables patients to receive virtual healthcare services from the hands of healthcare providers via telecommunication technology. Telemedicine thus became a boon to the rural communities to travel long distances to seek personal healthcare consultations.
Diverse Modalities of Telemedicine
Synchronous Healthcare: It is where real-time conversations occur in the virtual mode that is similar to traditional health services.
Remote Monitoring: the continuous monitoring of patient’s health metrics, augmented by digital telemedicine healthcare tools such as devices or wearables, which enables proactive medical interventions
Asynchronous care: doctors and patients usually do not interact in real time. Medical data, inquiries, or recordings are shared for subsequent evaluation or follow-up treatment.
Telemedicine vs. telehealth
Telemedicine deals mainly with remote clinical care provided by doctors. On the other, telehealth consists of a lot more health options like remote clinical and nonclinical services in this sector.
Telemedicine covers the doctor-patient relationship from communication to treatment, like diagnostic testing, medical history, monitoring, etc.
Benefits of Telemedicine
Patient Experience and Care improved
Traditional healthcare services are time-bound. While emergency services may be available, the appointment slot is limited.
With telemedicine, 24-hour support is available for healthcare consultation.
AI/ML-enabled chatbots and other virtual assistants are pushing forward into areas of guiding virtual healthcare and addressing the queries of patients at any hour.
Managing Chronic Diseases
Chronic diseases like diabetes and circular illness may not need daily monitoring, but the patient may face difficulty in reaching the doctor as they are unable to spare time in their packed routine to report for a doctor visit, leading to ineffective care.
Telemedicine allows patients to meet and consult their healthcare providers through video conferences, with help related to medication and treatment. Telemedicine also allows RPM with electronic wearables via apps connected to healthcare.
Cost-effective option
Costs of telemedicine consultations tend to be lower compared to in-person consultations with the doctor or in an emergency. Healthcare providers have used it in ICU rooms, radiology, dermatology, etc.
Controls the transmission of sickness
Scheduling appointments and streamlining clinic workflows reduce people’s exposure to other potentially sick individuals. Also, it helps prevent and slow down the transmission of other viruses.
Contextualized assessments
Telemedicine allows occupational and physical therapists to monitor patients in their natural space. In turn, this allows for a more thorough assessment of the patient’s capabilities for mobility and interaction with their place.
How Telemedicine Helps in Elderly Patient Care
Comfort and Convenience
Of course, with telemedicine, one doesn’t have to drive to the doctor’s office or clinic, huddle in a waiting room when feeling under the weather, and all that while sitting on an uncomfortable chair. One can see the doctor from the comfort of one’s bed or couch.
Virtual visits are easier to squeeze into one’s busy schedule. With telemedicine, you might even avoid taking time off work, depending on your plans, or arranging for daycare.
Reducing Emergency Room Visits
Telemedicine can keep patients from costly and dangerous emergency room visits with improved and effective communication between patients and their healthcare providers.
Early intervention would allow medical staff to monitor small changes before they escalate into emergencies. Your doctor can spot early signs that your condition is getting out of hand and that you are at risk of becoming seriously ill or approaching a critical condition.
Reduce Exposure to Bacteria or Germs
Despite clean and thorough cleaning by clinic staff, bacterial contamination risk in clinics and surrounding areas remains high and daunting.
Telemedicine offers an eco-friendly alternative to elderly patients with weak-immune health status by staying in their homes and consulting their doctor appointments, which they can spare from approaching the hospital.
Post-Surgery Follow-Ups of Patients
There will be further revisitation for those recovery patients after surgeries. People residing in the same city can manage a visit to healthcare centers for follow-up needs, but this is impossible for people living across different states.
Video calling features through telemedicine allow medical practitioners to hold video follow-up appointments with patients who are not in physical proximity to their office.
Early Detection and Intervention
Early disease intervention allows healthcare competency to reduce hospital readmissions, which requires putting resources together to innately reduce healthcare costs.
The entire reason behind it is the power of AI analysis. AI allows such predictive analysis, enabling healthcare experts to detect and treat diseases early on and prevent diseases from becoming severe.
Conclusion
In conclusion, telemedicine makes changes very advanced and makes healthcare access smarter. It gives such a different advantage, mostly to seniors. Balancing their health with mobility and other challenges is a set of tools that were not available generations ago. Helps the providers to interact with their patients, enjoying a relationship that can provide humanized care in telemedicine.
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