Telemedicine has indeed transformed the manner in which healthcare services are delivered to patients who may be located in remote locations. It deploys the knowledge obtained from information and telecommunication. It has assisted in eradicating the barrier created by distance in the delivery of healthcare services (Kontaxakis et al 1096).
In addition, emergency situations and critical care cases have significantly benefited in the technology derived from telemedicine. Oratier Technologies in Pakistan is one of the global companies that spearheaded the development of telemedicine in the Middle East.
The latest advances that have been made in the fields of information and communication technologies are instrumental in necessitating the application of telemedicine (Hoffman 1). As such, medical staff and patients can now communicate quite easily and confidentially due to limited hindrance. In addition, telemedicine has made it possible for healthcare professionals to transmit health informatics, imaging and general medical information to various locations.
The contemporary telemedicine has been integrated with modern diagnostic methods and advanced video-telephones. Moreover, home care in remote or distant locations has been facilitated using server applications mounted on the modern Information Technology (IT) infrastructures (Kontaxakis et al 1094).
Telemedicine is a broad application in the field of medicine. This explains why it has been subdivided into three key areas. To begin with, telemedicine offers real time interactive healthcare services to patients. Under this category, patients may be visited in their homes by healthcare staff.
They may also be engaged in fruitful conversations through online portals or phone calls. There are myriads of activities that may be carried out during such interactive sessions. These include ophthalmology assessments, physical examination and reviewing past medical records of patients (Hoffman 1).
It is prudent to note that such interactive clinical services are relatively cheaper than physical visits to a healthcare establishment. MedPhone Corporation was the first American company to design a system that could use interactive telemedicine. This machine was specifically meant to resuscitate patients suffering from cardiac arrests. A cellular version in form of a mobile telephone was introduced one year later by the same company.
The second classification of telemedicine deals with the storage and subsequent transmission of medical data to the respective medical experts. Some of the information that can be handled using this method includes bio-signals and medical images (Kontaxakis et al 1097). Therefore, the concerned medical experts are supposed to work on such data while they are offline.
This implies that the simultaneous presence of both the patient and medical expert is not required when this method is used. Asynchronous medical attention can therefore make use of specialties such as pathology and dermatology when this method is applied.
The third category of telemedicine is remote monitoring. Quite a number of medical devices can be used by medical professionals to assess patients who are located in remote locations (Kontaxakis et al 1093). This method is also referred to as self-testing.
Although it is a common form of telemedicine, it is most appropriate when there is need to assess and control chronic infections such as asthma and cardiovascular diseases. Remote monitoring may offer the required satisfaction to healthcare recipients compared to traditional clinical visits. Improved outcomes have also been reported when this method is used to monitor long term infections even in locations that cannot be easily accessed by medical experts.
Works Cited
Hoffman, Jan. When Your Therapist Is Only a Click Away. 2011. Web.
Kontaxakis, George et al. Integrated Telemedicine Applications and Services for Oncological Positron Emission Tomography. Oncology Reports 15 (2006): 1091– 1100. Print.