What Is Telehealth And How It Works In Pakistan? Telehealth is defined as a platform that facilitates and delivers health care related services. It includes medical care, patient education, self-care tips, and health-related information. Telehealth is a mix of all the services, related to one’s health and diseases. It is a broader term than telemedicine, which is a platform to consult with a doctor. All the telemedicine services come under the telehealth domain. There are many different ways through which telehealth operates, in this article we are going to discuss how does telehealth work. How does telehealth work? Live or one to one consultation In this form of telehealth, the patient and the health care provider talk to each other in real-time. They can interact with each other either through a phone call or a video call. It helps the patient in asking the queries they have to the doctor. Live consultation helps in building the patient’s trust and makes counseling easier for the doctor. Store-and-forward Moreover, in this form of telehealth, the patient and the health care provider do not talk one to one. The patient sends their data regarding lab reports, medications, history, signs, and symptoms. The data is then stored in the database and forwarded to the health care provider. They then check and reply whenever it is feasible for them, It does not interrupt the healthcare providers in their daily life schedule. It also does not require many people’s efforts to schedule appointments. Moreover, it is usually done through SMS or a patient’s portal application. Remote patient monitoring In remote patient monitoring, the patient or a health care provider enters the lab details and vitals like heart rate, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels in the software. Remote patient monitoring helps in gathering all the data in one place therefore it eases the health care providers in evaluating the progress of their patients. It is valuable for patients suffering from chronic diseases like chronic kidney disease or chronic liver disease etc. This form of telehealth is also vital for those having life long problems like diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension or asthma, etc. Since they need to see their doctor frequently and their vitals indicate their progress. mHealth mHealth telehealth works to promote health care facilities with the help of mobile devices or other wireless technologies. By using mHealth, the patient can insert their details regarding medications, vitals, signs, and symptoms. Then the healthcare provider looks over those and replies with a message as advice. In this way, the patient does not have to interact with the doctor one-to-one. The patient checks the blood pressure, blood glucose, or even ECG by connecting with a smart device which is then recorded and updated on their mobile. Hybrid consultation This is a combination of live and store-and-forward methods of telehealth. The health care provider can reach the patient’s details, labs, history, and disease progress anytime. They can interact with each other via phone call or a video call. This is usually helpful in dermatology and cardiology related consultations. Significance of telehealth Telehealth is a platform that is so helpful for the people who live in rural areas. They do not need to travel long distances frequently for an expert’s advice. Since there is not much well-developed healthcare system there, the people living in rural areas face a lot of difficulty in getting expert’s advice. It also reduces the transportation costs for patients. They can consult with their doctor from the comfort of their home. It also helps in saving energy and time. They need not wait outside several hours to see their doctor. Especially for those who have to visit their doctor frequently. Moreover, it is also helpful for those patients who have undergone surgery recently and cannot move easily to see their doctor for follow up. With the help of telehealth, healthcare providers can reduce the patient’s influx to the emergency department and outpatient clinics. They can filter out who really needs to visit the hospital or not. By this, they can manage their schedule and outpatient clinics in a much better way. Telehealth services have made it much easier to educate patients, raise awareness, and promote healthcare facilities. With its help, the knowledge can spread much easily among many people. Conclusion Telehealth services are one of the great development of technology. But it still requires a lot of effort to normalize it. There are many shortcomings that people face to adopt it completely. It is still a problem at places where there are no proper internet connections, no cellular network signals, and a lack of power supply. We can hope to get it implemented completely soon. If you want to have a live session with a doctor, visit here. For more info, visit Instacare.
How to consult a doctor during the lockdown? Everyone nowadays has to practice social distancing due to pandemic. Hospitals are overloaded with the patients and its so much chaos already. Since people should avoid going outside, at the same time they are worried about how can they consult with the doctor during a lockdown. Why is consultation important? Many people need to visit their doctor frequently. For example, a person suffering from heart disease has to be under the follow up of their concerned doctor. Or a person suffering from chronic kidney disease needs to consult with a doctor often. Some people need to get dose adjustments done in their prescriptions. While some patients need to get their tests done frequently. Doctors keep on changing the drugs as per patients’ needs. For all these purposes, people have to visit their clinicians to manage their disease and symptoms. Why are people unable to go to hospitals? Due to the lockdown, there is no public transport available through which one can go to the hospital. Because of this reason, people are facing issues in consulting with the doctor during a lockdown. People are getting anxious and this is also increasing panic and anxiety among people. Going to the hospital itself is so risky thing nowadays. People are trying their best to avoid the hospital’s exposure due to pandemic because they are a hub of infections. If a person is hypertensive, asthmatic, or immunocompromised, it makes them susceptible to catching an infection. People already have any health problem or suffering from a disease should avoid their exposure to clinics and hospitals much as they can. What is the solution? If you are one of those who needs to consult with their doctor often. Or if you already have heart disease, hypertension or asthma, etc and you are under follow up of the doctor. Do not worry if you require consultation with your doctor during a lockdown. We are here with a solution on which almost the whole world is relying right now. The solution to your problem is telemedicine. You can easily consult with your doctor during lockdown via telemedicine. What is telemedicine? Telemedicine is the platform for patients to interact with the doctor through a video conference. It helps the doctors to prescribe, diagnose, educate, and monitor the patient. With the help of telemedicine, the doctor asks relevant questions to the patient about the disease. The doctor and the patient can discuss the signs and symptoms of disease along with a detailed history. The doctor can then make a further decision about how to proceed further. Either the doctor needs to adjust the dose. Or the patient needs to get a blood test. Moreover, they can make a decision of calling the patient to the hospital if the patient’s health is critical. The patient can get the expert’s advice with the help of telemedicine. Benefits of telemedicine Heavy load on hospitals The hospitals can not manage the heavy volume of patients in this state of panic, but they can manage it with the help of telemedicine applications. Through telemedicine, you can help in preventing infections because it helps reduce people’s exposure to each other. Telemedicine reduces the physical contact of the patient to the doctors and other patients. This helps in containing the pandemic. High-risk patients Due to the pandemic, you should minimize your visits to any overcrowded place. Hospitals waiting for areas are already busy and so overcrowded that if you are even healthy, you can catch an infection. If you are a high-risk patient, you should avoid it. Remote consultation by the doctor, therefore, reduces the risk of getting exposed and infected. Lack of transportation during the lockdown Due to lockdown, there is no public transport outside. It is too hard for people to reach their doctors during a lockdown. So telemedicine can also help in this regard. You can virtually visit your doctor from the comfort of your home. Time-saving You need to wait for the doctors in a long queue. You can easily consult with your doctor virtually. This helps in saving time, as well as energy. You need not go out and expose yourself to the public. This saves the time of transportation and waiting in the queue. Conclusion Through the InstaCare telemedicine application, you can easily consult with expert doctors on your fingertips. You need not go out and expose yourself to other people. With the help of InstaCare, you can even consult with your doctor during a lockdown, while staying at home and healthy. By consulting virtually with a doctor, you can get the expert’s advice without any hassle. Do not rely on telemedicine if someone near you is in critical condition. Rush to the hospital if they need help from the doctors. Like if someone is bleeding badly or cannot breathe etc, then you should never rely on telemedicine applications. Telemedicine is a source to help people who are stable and out of danger.
