Pros & Cons of Telemedicine in Healthcare

Are you the one looking out for more on telemedicine? 

According to research by software advice, it has been found that around 75% of survey respondents are interested in trying telemedicine mainly the fact that it has eliminated the long-lasting gap in healthcare services.

That being said, let’s see more about this telemedicine app with more technology and software that can feed your needs.

What is meant by Telemedicine?

Telemedicine is a health-related practice that uses technology to take care of remote patients when the provider and patient are physically away from each other. This modern technology involves a wide range of uses that includes online patient consultations, remote control, telehealth nursing, and psychiatry rehabilitation. 

Now, let’s see how the modern technology of telemedicine has impacted the healthcare industry.

Impact of Telemedicine Over The Way of Treatment

Where the telehealth app is in-use more than ever before, a survey with American Hospital Association conducted in U.S hospitals, says that since 2010, 3 people out of 4 were using the app and have obtained satisfactory results.

This shows that the quality of telehealthcare is as good and personalized as in-person care, according to the American Telemedicine Association.

1. Provides Better Intensive Care to Patients 

In recent times American Journal of Critical Care has published a study stating that nearly 80% of nurses working in the intensive care telemedicine units notified telehealth to be an opportunity giver to provide better patient care. It benefits  of tele-intensive care include,

• Enables to accomplish the task in a smarter and quicker way
• Improved productivity
• Enhanced collaboration
• Improved communication with more personalized interaction
• Furthermore, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reveals that remote ICU consultations have reduced the mortality rate to some extent.

2. Improves Outcome for Emergency Care Patients 

According to AHRQ’s systematic review studies published between 1996 and 2018,

• Telemedicine consultation for specialty care has lessened patient time consumption in the emergency department
• The heart attack patient was found to experience lower mortality when given emergency telehealth services
• Telemedicine consultation has reduced emergency care transfer which reduces the cost by improving the health care outcome

3. Enable More Personalized Treatment for Patients with Chronic Conditions

The review conducted by U.S Community Preventive Services Task Force says that telehealth improves the management of chronic diseases in the below-mentioned ways,

• Supportive to medications
• Better clinical outcomes like blood pressure control
• Perfect dietary outcomes including sodium intake reduction

4. Monitoring Patient’s Data Remotely 

The telemedicine app transmits remote patient clinical data like glucose and blood pressure monitoring to the health care provider in real time. This indeed supports the doctor to have a fine check on the patient’s health condition.

After having some insight into a variety of ways that have impacted the healthcare industry, let’s have a quick review of some of the top advantages and disadvantages of this healthcare application to have a better understanding of its usage.

Benefits of Telemedicine Application 

Where telemedicine software has contributed to making the most out of virtual care applications supporting the healthcare industry’s revolution through cost reduction. Technology has also eliminated the complexities in the way of treatment. Let’s have a further look

1. Telehealth App to Expand Patient’s, Comfort Zone

The technology of telemedicine with virtual care has made patients’ healthcare convenient in the comfort of their homes. Whether it’s about connecting with specialist outside the geographical location or within the time zone, the application expands and strengthen patient-doctor relationships with,

• Post-surgical follow-up
• Behavioral health situation
• COVID-19
• Immediate care
• ED Triage to identify patient’s immediate stage of urgency to treat

2. Cost-effective Treatment

With virtual care, the cost of treatment is most often less expensive for both patients as well as for providers. It also removes the need for a waiting room and commuting to the clinic, mostly for patients who are suffering from chronic conditions that demand frequent appointments.

Therefore, many virtual care platforms have patient enrollment and scheduling features in such a way that it streamlines virtual appointment booking. Moreover, the built-in billing system of telemedicine makes patient payment collection simple with online transactions.

3. Collaborate with patients Across the World for Better Patient Outcome

The telemedicine application enables doctors to check on their patients remotely – which can indeed maintain the patient’s better health by preventing the unnecessary need for hospital traveling and admissions.

These virtual care apps also support the patients to clarify their queries related to medication and treatment plans, and also to get better virtual care from the provider concerning guidance. 

Disadvantages of Telemedicine Application

Every potential application will have its own concerns to be dealt with, the same way these virtual telemedicine apps also come with certain challenges. These disadvantages involve the continuous need for clearer, streamlined policies and more. So, let’s have a look at some,

1. Industries with Regulatory Barriers

Telemedicine regulations for the healthcare industry differ from place to place. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the waivers expired for people in the first place itself, where the people were not reimbursed for most of their expenses and this was not evaluated and updated as well in the system process. This has created a source of disappointment among most of the app users.

2. Limitations in Patient’s Physical Examination

Today, patients and doctors are connecting with the most advanced technology of video conferencing, but still, there are patients who need in-person physical examinations. The live video communication technology was not enough to provide any in-person or complete medical care. 

Thus, sometimes the patient does not feel comfortable having an examination over video chat. Henceforth, some patients choose to have an in-person visit instead of a virtual appointment.

3. Modern and Costlier Equipment and Technology

The telemedicine app provides a lot more in remote health care services including therapy appointments, chronic patient monitoring, and post-operative care. Now for your awareness, since all these services run on software and hardware that are costlier and also need some training to use, these aspects make them undesirable for most of the users.

Is Telemedicine Really A Good Deal for Doctors and Patients? Let’s Explore!

According to a study report with Statista, the global telemedicine market size has grown significantly in recent years. As of 2019, the global market is valued at around 50 billion U.S. dollars which is expected to reach nearly 460 billion U.S. dollars by 2030.

This shows the impact of this technology on both patients and doctors. Let’s have a look from both ends for better clarity,

6 Best Things of Telemedicine Applications for Patients

Patients have been embracing the advantages of telemedicine apps with most of the below,

1. Easy Access to Any Specialists

The telemedicine application has changed the perspective of treatment where the patient can connect with any specialist around the clock without any prior appointment and get guidance with immediate treatment.

2. Cost-effective Treatment

Telemedicine has made appointments typically more cost-effective than in-person visits where people with good health insurance don’t have to spend much as before out-of-pocket. 

3. Easily Accessible Medical Care Without Health Insurance

In earlier days some health insurance did cause hindrances between the patient and doctor. But nowadays, most companies provide cash-pay telemedicine that doesn’t require any health insurance or referrals.

4. Easy to Access Medical Care for Rural Patients

Telemedicine provides a way for rural patients to have a quick connection with doctors. This saves both time and money allowing people to stay off the road.

5. Minimal Exposure to Pathogens

With telemedicine apps, the patient can stay at home avoiding the use of the doctor’s waiting room with other patients, where they are more exposed to viruses and germs.

6. Reduces Medical Overhead Costs

Using the telemedicine application the patient can avoid the indirect expenses that are contributed during the patient’s medical care. This involves traveling expenses, governance, documentation, etc.

Best of Telemedicine for Doctors

There are plenty of benefits for providers to use telemedicine apps. Let’s have a look,

1. Expand Access to Health Care

Most of the time many hospitals and physicians lack the medical staff they need. With telemedicine apps, now doctors can expand their access to medical care by providing proper guidance to patients across the world anytime.

2. Enhances Patients Satisfaction Scores

These healthcare applications have improved patient satisfaction scores by providing shorter waiting times with convenience in access to care. As per a Harvard research study, it has been found that each doctor visit takes 121 minutes of a patient’s time wherein patients spend only 20 mins with the doctor on average.

3. Addition Revenue Stream

The doctors can treat more patients quickly with virtual visits or phone calls which take very minimal time than traditional visits and offer a direct connection to patients without consuming much space.

4. Great Cut-down on Readmissions

Telehealth allows doctors to stay in closer contact with more patients, which gives a huge opportunity to assess emerging symptoms and spot early problems before there is a need for serious medical treatment.

5. Increase in Workflow

These telemedicine apps are designed in such a way that it quickly identifies the patient’s reason for calling depending upon which prioritized care can be delivered, which eventually increases the work efficiency of the doctor or nurses.

Now, after having a brief discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of telemedicine applications. Let’s have some insight into the technical part.

Telemedicine Software with Its Technical Stacks for Any Healthcare Application

It’s the technical stack that makes the functionalities more perfect and convenient. However, it is not mandatory that all healthcare applications should have a particular technical stack to act in the backend. 

But, still, there are some considerable sets of technology that are mostly preferred. Let’s have a look at some of them for a better understanding.

1. Erlang

It is a general-purpose programming language that is meant to create a typical application for communication. It is built-in with a supportive mode for concurrency and distribution with fault tolerance. This technology is made in use with a variety of the largest telecommunication systems from Ericsson.

2. Ejabberd 

Being an XMPP application server and an MQTT broker, Ejabberd is mainly written in the Erlang programming language. It mostly takes care of the message delivery system over any local area network. It simplifies the complicated administration and key usage statistics using an easy-to-use and customizable management module for administrators.

3. YAWS

YAWS is a web server that’s written in Erlang by Klocke. It can be integrated into other Erlang-based applications or can also be run as a standalone web server. YAWS system is highly capable to handle concurrent processes in the most efficient way to have a high-end performance.

4. PHP 

PHP is a Hypertext Preprocessor which is one of the widely-used open source languages. The technology is free to download and use and can be executed easily on any server. It is a popular language known for its performance and reliability that creates a strong and powerful web development technology when collaborating with AJAX to display the data from the database.

5. XMPP Server 

XMPP belongs to an open standard that stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. It supports instant messaging and near-real-time chat while maintaining the exchange of XML data over a network. The server also provides basic messaging services with presence and XML routing features.

However, there are many more technologies out there in the market but, the above discussed are the most commonly used ones. Furthermore, let’s see why you must consider MirrorFly for your telemedicine application.

Key Reasons to Choose MirrorFly APIs for Your Telemedicine App!

Where telemedicine apps have stretched their reach across the world, every healthcare industry is looking out to build its own healthcare application. Of course, it’s not an easy task to make a decision as it involves certain key factors to rely on including,

End-to-end Security: For any healthcare application, security is one of the major factors to be checked upon. So, when it comes to MirrorFly APIs they ensure a high level of security protocol with HIPAA compliance across its APIs and SDKs. This protects patients’ healthcare information including confidential medical documents, diagnostic reports, and more.

On-Cloud/On-premises Hosting Service: Storage of data comes at the second most priority for any telemedicine app development. Thus, considering the same MirrorFly offers options in hosting – your cloud or our cloud to store the conversations and related data as per your preference.

High-level of Scalability: Scalability refers to user retention, and it places a very important role in the real-time communication sector. Our solution is highly capable to get you over 1 billion + users across the world with multiple platforms guaranteeing non-comprisable quality and connection.

Effortless Integration: To develop any telemedicine application it is very essential for the APIs to be compatible to get integrated into any third-party or pre-built devices like iOS, Android, and web applications. Thus, MirrorFly offers simple guided documentation that will have a detailed integration process to proceed with integration.

Effortless Migration: Sometimes, when you decide to migrate from your existing provider, our solution will take care of the complete end-to-end migration process wherein your conversations and data will be transferred safely without any data loss.

Pricing: Being comfortable at pricing is the best thing you can ever have while developing your telemedicine app. Thus, MirrorFly’s pricing comes with two preferable options – self-managed (one-time license cost) and on-cloud (pay-as-you-go), where you can make a choice depending upon your business demands.

Final Words!

I hope now you would have gotten better exposure to telemedicine app usage, technology, and more in the industry.

So, now all these concepts excite you to create your own telemedicine apps. I believe this post could be a guide for you to do further research.

So, what are you waiting for? Stay with us and get to know more.

Thank You!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)