Telemedicine: From Smoke Signals To Mobile Applications

The first form of telemedicine began with African villagers who used smoked signals to warn people to stay away from their village in case of serious disease. In the early 1900s, people living in remote areas of Australia used two-way radios to request medical advice and procedures from neighboring continents. As mobile devices become a common theme in health care, they are leading the growth and development for medical apps and telemedicine. Telemedicine is the idea of an electronic exchange of medical information between a doctor and a patient from one location to another. Read about Chicago mobile app development.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, “Mobile devices and apps provide many benefits for Health Care Providers (HCPs), perhaps most significantly increased access to point-of-care tools, which have been shown to support better clinical-decision making and improved patient outcomes.”

HCPs are using mobile devices and applications in these five broad categories:

• Administration

• Health record maintenance and access

• Communications and consulting

  • 48% of doctors use their smartphone for searching with professional apps consuming an additional 38% of content

• Reference and information gathering

  • 56% of physicians spent their time looking for information to make or support critical decisions

• Medical education

  • 55% of the most frequently viewed content was medical education

  • 13% of physicians spent an average of three hours per week watching web videos on their smartphones

Protecting patient rights and safety, and quality of apps is at the top of HCPs mind, so the adoption for telemedicine is slower and showing resistance. However, thanks to organizations like Video Medicine, Inc. telemedicine capabilities are currently available to physicians. The app is more than just HIPAA compliant, it exceeds even HIPAA’s security standards for data transmission.

With Video Medicine app, patients can speak with physicians and psychologists (face-to-face) to get advice, learn about treatment/ diagnoses and in some states, get a prescription — if needed. Patients are also able to send relevant notes and high-resolution photos to a physician, as well as make appointments right from their mobile devices.

Telemedicine is on the rise as doctors and patients become more technology savvy and take a hold of the digital wave, and only time will tell as we see more HCPs grab a board and take the ride.

And do you have a roadmap for digitizing your healthcare solutions?

Sources: Google Physician Study, Video Medicine; image - Shutterstock