I agree that the field of telemedicine has great potential to improve in the future years. It is specifically relevant to consider telemedicine as the primary choice of treatment during the pandemic. The setting of self-quarantine restricts the usual format of doctor visits to protect both patients and clinicians from Covid-19 exposure. Virtual care is a logical answer to how to limit virus exposure while still providing high-quality medical services to patients. According to Hollander and Carr (2020), telemedicine is frequently used to examine the early symptoms of Covid-19. In this way, the remote medical assessments lessen the chances of contamination in a hospital because the potential virus carrier is not physically present in the community.
I also believe that telemedicine has its weakness in the strong reliance on technology. We have to trust computers to deliver good video and audio quality because these elements are what the correct diagnosis and treatment indirectly rely on. However, Haxhihamza et al. (2020) suggest that, although telemedicine’s reliance on technology might impact the delivery of health services, it is one of the few ways for health care providers during the pandemic setting. Therefore, telemedicine can become a central method of medical care delivery on the condition that the technology it relies on is being constantly improved.
Telemedicine can provide health care to places that are located in isolation from any medical services support. It is known that urban citizens receive health care of a higher quality than people living in rural areas (Khairat et al., 2018). Researchers found that virtual urgent care helped rural citizens to gain access to better medical care (Khairat et al., 2018). Therefore, telemedicine can help physicians tackle the issue of inequity between health care provided to rural and urban areas.
References
Haxhihamza, K., Arsova, S., Bajraktarov, S., Kalpak, G., Stefanovski, B., Novotni, A., & Milutinovic, M. (2020). Patient satisfaction with use of telemedicine in University Clinic of Psychiatry: Skopje, North Macedonia during COVID-19 pandemic.Telemedicine and E-Health. Web.
Hollander, J. E., & Carr, B. G. (2020). Virtually perfect? Telemedicine for Covid-19.New England Journal of Medicine. Web.
Khairat, S., Haithcoat, T., Liu, S., Zaman, T., Edson, B., Gianforcaro, R., & Shyu, C.-R. (2019). Advancing health equity and access using telemedicine: A geospatial assessment.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 26(8–9), 796–805. Web.