The future of Telehealth

The future of the healthcare market is shaping up right in front of our eyes with the constant integration of technology into it. The demand is not only to provide better treatment facilities but also to make them more accessible. With the increasing count of, both, diseases and their victims, healthcare systems are at the dearth of solutions that can fulfil these demands more efficiently. Efficient delivery systems are the need of the current hour.

Telehealth, an epitome of technology-penetration into healthcare services, has been lobbying around to solve these problems for a few years now. The potential benefits of this innovation are many.

The fundamental benefits of Telehealth

Optimal use of time and resources

Telehealth allows the medical expert to optimally utilize his time. He can dedicate his clinic hours to patients who really require clinical assessments. Medical counselling can otherwise be done over the internet. The lack of professionals can also be overcome by saving transit time and utilizing the extra minutes to treat more patients.

Not only is this beneficial for the healthcare system but also serves the end-users well. They can seek opinions through a phone or video conversation and schedule an appointment only if requires.

Improved access

Telehealth aids point-of-care decision making. It allows patients to access reliable medical information and advice anywhere and at any point in the day. Travelling long distances will not be required and decisions about his/her medical condition can be made more quickly.

Cost-efficiency

Reduced travel will greatly reduce the costs that patients have to pay for each visit. A low requirement of professional staffing will also take some burden off the healthcare system. More investments can then be made on treatment facilities.

Despite these perks, telehealth hasn’t gained enough acceptance from the stratum of patients yet.

The challenges

Although this technology has existed for long, it has never been considered equivalent to a traditional in-clinic consultation. Market research suggests the following for improvement and increased acceptance

Overcome the ICT barriers

The cost of IT hardware and software that make-up the infrastructure for telehealth services are exorbitantly expensive. While this is a problem for the provider, the limited availability of fast networks affects both, the providers and the end-users.

Personalize your solutions

Development of software in languages other than English has been very slow. This restricts the number of patients that can be served. An expansion of this segment to help devices understand inputs in a number of languages will provide your service with a better reach and thus, acceptance too.