According to Shi (2019), low family income and the absence of health insurance are the main reasons that prevent people from having regular healthcare access. Due to that reason, patients are unable to receive necessary, timely, and high-quality treatment. Technological improvements are believed to partly solve that problem by providing more accessible services at lower costs. In compliance with that view, eHealth is one of the most promising trends in the modern medical sphere. The term is defined as using information and communication technology (ICT) to support the healthcare system (Ossebaard & Van Gemert-Pijnen, 2016). The following paragraphs highlight the positive effects of eHealth on providing primary care for people with chronic diseases.
Firstly, ICT allows patients to receive consultations through the phone or the internet 24/7. Therefore, it significantly reduces the time that users need to get access to professional help. That is especially important for people with chronic diseases as they may face discomfort and suffering frequently and, thus, continuously seek a doctor’s advice. Secondly, hospitals can send reminder messages for patients to have certain medical procedures. For instance, patients recently diagnosed with diabetes can get notifications about insulin injections for the first couple of months. According to Gu et al. (2016), that can increase adherence to doctors’ prescriptions by almost 40%. Finally, phone messages or calls and emails can be used to increase the education level of the patients. For instance, during epidemic situations such as the recent Covid-19 outbreak, the ministry of health and other related institutions can notify citizens concerning actions that can prevent the spread of the disease.
It is important to notice that all the methods presented above are available to the majority of the population now. Iribarren et al. (2017) maintain that the number of mobile phone users increased from one billion in 2001 to seven billion people in 2015, which equals 97% percent of the world’s population. Therefore, almost all people would be able to access medical services through their hand devices and be able to enjoy opportunities provided by eHealth.
References
Gu, Y., Wang, L., Zhao, L., Liu, Z., Luo, H., Tao, Q., Zhang, R., He, S., Wang, X., Huang, R., Zhang, L., Pan, Y. & Guo, X. (2016). Effect of mobile phone reminder messages on adherence of stent removal or exchange in patients with benign pancreaticobiliary diseases: a prospectively randomized, controlled study. BMC gastroenterology, 16(1), 1-6.
Iribarren, S. J., Cato, K., Falzon, L., & Stone, P. W. (2017). What is the economic evidence for mHealth? A systematic review of economic evaluations of mHealth solutions. PloS one, 12(2).
Ossebaard, H. C., & Van Gemert-Pijnen, L. (2016). eHealth and quality in health care: implementation time. International journal for quality in health care, 28(3), 415-419.
Shi, L. (2019). Introduction to Health Policy (2nd ed.). Health Administration Press.