Topic 3

The video above shows the reason why telemedicine is important. Of course, like any technology, telemedicine does have its own benefits and drawbacks. Telemedicine has been around for a while now and a lot of problems with it have been fixed. 

• Telemedicine supports general practitioners and rural practitioners. The GP's in rural area's can ask for support from specialists to help their patients better.
  
• The Vodafone telemedicine program promotes preventative medicine and therefore helps prevent diseases through their early diagnosis.
  
• It covers patients with chronic diseases, as it enables them to systematically monitor their health status at their place of residence, removing geographical or other restrictions.
  
• Telemedicine has the immediacy of the help that can be provided.
• It prevents the abandonation of remoted places. 
• Telemedicine reduces health care costs.
  
• It even reduces the emission of atmospheric pollutants.
  
• A drawback for telemedicine is that the medical consultant loses a lot of the information he or she would get from direct contact with the patient, and it may not always be possible to help immediately.

A study of the benefits of telehealth divided the patients into two groups, one where the patients visit a geriatric service and the other is Telegeriatric where patients have a videoconference with a general practitioner. In conclusion, the Telegeriatric reduced the wait times, had a geographically broader reach, and was able to reach more remoted areas compared with the geriatric service. For the results of the article click “Improving geriatric care and reducing hospitalizations in regional and remote areas: The benefits of telehealth”.

Telemedicine significantly reduces the health care cost by saving money for the health care provider, the patients, and insurance. It also reduces unnecessary non-urgent ER visits and eliminates transportation expenses for regular checkups. 

Another study shows that between January 2018 and June 2019 in total 9034 face-to-face visits were avoided in 2 hospitals.  For an average journey of 25 minutes to the hospital and back a total of 11,754 L of petrol were saved whom would have cost 15,664 euros. Total reduction in pollutants is 29.384 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 36.61 kg of carbon monoxide. Therefore, Telemedicine reduces the environmental impact of atmospheric pollutants emitted by vehicles by reducing the number of journeys made for face-to-face visits to see a specialist. For the results of the article click “Impact of a Telemedicine Program on the Reduction in the Emission of Atmospheric Pollutants and Journeys by Road”

To sum all these benefits up, you can watch this American video about how telemedicine can improve care