Telehealth-

Telehealth – An Emerging Technology Solution In Healthcare

According to a paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Telemedicine technology first began as a form of healthcare delivery in the late 1960s due to the needs of the NASA and the Nebraska Psychology Institute. Since then, there have been multiple barriers such as financial, regulatory, and technological challenges standing in the way of the widespread adoption of telemedicine technology, but recent healthcare reforms have surely brought about a change in this arena.

During the pandemic, Telehealth has risen as the saving grace for the healthcare industry, and although we see the effects of the pandemic reduce, what is clear is that, the utilization of this revolutionary technology will continue to stay. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), telehealth utilization spiked by more than 154% in late March of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

To add to the demand of Telehealth solutions, the United Nations predicts that by 2050, the world will be home to 10 billion people, and two in five of these people will be aged 60 or over, including 434 million over 80 years old. Unquestionably, this is going to motivate the world to shift from a hospital-centered systems to more community- based concept…and this is where Telehealth will demand the lead role.

Telehealth is not just facilitating remote health services, it is now even proving to be a revenue-generating and profitable solution; provided it is implemented with the solution-focused scope, required integrations and business process alignment. In order to achieve a 100% ROI for the Telehealth project, one must have or outsource the expertise

(1)     to ensure the selection of the right solution and vendor

(2)     to ensure the flawless implementation

Though questions around regulations, audits, policies, security, data storage and retrieval raised doubts regarding the future of Telehealth; answers are now being made available which allows me to make the statement “Telehealth is here to stay”.

Sources:

https://www.arabhealthonline.com/en/visit/medtech-industry.html https://healthcaretransformers.com/digital-health/future-of-telehealth/

https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/the-history-of-remote-monitoring-telemedicine-technology#:~:text=November%2009%2C%202015%20%2D%20Telemedic    ine%20technology,Louis%20University%20and%20Bentley%20University