With recent technological advancements, telemedicine services are playing a significant role in supporting medical home visits. These care services are provided via phone or video call on a laptop. With telemedicine, a gradual growth has been noticed in home visit services, with a better satisfaction rate. But how is it beneficial for you or your loved ones? Learn how telemedicine augments medical home visits and the benefits of telemedicine in this article. Talk to our experts to know more.
How does Telemedicine augment medical home visits?
Telemedicine augments medical home visits by offering many applications that increase its effectiveness for both health providers and patients:
- Remote monitoring:
Many technological advancements allow your provider or health care team to monitor your health without seeing you in person. These technological advancements include:
- Web-based or mobile apps that can upload data to your provider or healthcare team. For example, if you have diabetes, you can upload your food logs, blood sugar levels, and drugs you take. A nurse or healthcare provider can check that.
- Devices that are used to measure and send data wirelessly to the healthcare provider, such as blood pressure, blood sugar, and oxygen levels.
- Wearable devices that can automatically record and send data. For example, the devices may record data like heart rate, blood sugar, how many steps you walk every day, your posture, tremors, physical activity, or your sleep.
- Home monitoring devices for older people or people with dementia can monitor changes in daily activities, such as falls.
- Devices that send notifications to remind you to do exercises or take medicines.
- Providers talking to providers:
Providers use technology to provide people with better care. For example, in a virtual consultation, primary care providers can get information from specialists in other locations when they have questions about your diagnosis or treatment. The primary care provider sends exam notes, history, test results, X-rays, or other images to the specialist to review, and may get an answer by email, or they may have a virtual meeting at their offices. They may also ask each other by doing a face-to-face meeting. In some cases, a nurse or other health care professional may use technology to offer care from a medical office, clinic, or mobile van in a rural area. They may call a specialist or provider to get remote consultation. These virtual consultations may prevent unnecessary in-person referrals to a specialist and also cut waiting times to see a specialist, along with removing the traveling time to a specialist.
- Patient portal:
Your primary care clinic may have a patient portal, which offers a safer way to contact your provider instead of email. This portal provides a safe online tool to do the following:
- Leaving a message for your provider or a nurse.
- Talk about prescription refills.
- Ask about test results and review the summaries of earlier visits.
- Schedule your visits or get appointment reminders for preventive care.
If your provider has a large health care system, the portal may provide contacts of specialists you may want to see.
- Patient health records:
An electronic personal health record system (PHR system) has a collection of information about your health that you can control and maintain. It is an easy way to see your health information anytime via a web-enabled device, such as your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This also allows you to review your lab results, like X-rays and notes from your provider. Your provider may give this information to other providers with your permission to use the information to give emergency treatment. It can include your current conditions, drugs, drug allergies, and your provider’s contact details.
- Primary care:
Many primary care providers offer personalized care to their patients through telemedicine. It makes it easy for an individual to contact their family doctor and consult them at any time of the day. However, this is not possible with every healthcare professional because they work during dedicated working hours. Nevertheless, virtual primary care can handle a wide range of non-serious health conditions like colds, rashes, flu, and minor injuries. Timely primary care ensures that your condition is managed well, and that greatly lowers the risk of complications.
- Chronic disease management:
For patients, it is common to consult their doctors virtually to handle chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and more. Doctors ensure remote health monitoring at home over a long period, along with long-term nursing care. Qualified caregivers help patients recover and manage their chronic illnesses.
- Mental health support:
Virtual doctor-patient interactions are very common in the case of mental health issues. Many patients feel more secure and confident without visiting their doctors in person. Counseling and therapy work well without the need for two parties to meet each other in person. Patients can talk to their therapists virtually and receive tailor-made consultations from mental health experts.
- Post-surgical care:
Patients also consult their doctors over audio and video calls after surgeries. These consultations help the patient to live a normal life again by making their lives as normal as possible after surgery. From physical therapy to post-partum care, these services help several patients seek holistic medical care from qualified healthcare professionals.
- Health and wellness education:
Telemedicine not only helps in the diagnosis and treatment of patients, but it also helps doctors to counsel their patients and educate them about important health complications. It may include explaining your symptoms and helping you navigate your disease by giving valuable information. This can be done by participating in virtual doctor-patient interactions.
Telehealth benefits
Telemedicine offers many healthcare benefits for patients, including:
- Improved Access: Telehealth can be applied to bring healthcare services to consumers in distant locations. It not only improves consumer access but also extends the geographic reach and expertise of physicians and health facilities. It allows providers to give access to safe, effective, appropriate care when and where they need it, even when they come from rural or urban areas.
- Cost efficiencies: Lowering the cost of healthcare is one of the best motivators for people to fund and adopt virtual care technologies. Telehealth lowers the cost of healthcare and increases efficiency for better management of chronic diseases, shared health professional staffing, reduced travel times, fewer to shorter hospital stays.
- Improved quality: Studies found that the quality of healthcare services delivered by telehealth is better than traditional in-person consultations for the majority of cases. For instance, in mental health and ICU care, telehealth delivers superior services with greater outcomes and patient satisfaction.
- Consumer Demand: The greatest impact of telehealth is that consumers have a lower travel time and related issues. Over the past 15 years, Multiple studies have found that consumer satisfaction increases with telehealth services. Such services give consumers access to providers that might not be available otherwise, as well as medical services without the need to travel long distances.
Telemedicine services in medical home visits offer many advantages to improve their services while ensuring better care and support for patients. Many patients prefer telehealth services for their loved ones because of the convenience, cost-effectiveness, and better quality of care.
Consult with your provider or call us to get a consultation from our home services providers to get the best care service for your loved ones!!!!! At ROADL, we are committed to fostering strong partnerships and collaborations that drive innovation and improve the healthcare experience for all. By working together, we can revolutionize the way care is delivered, making it more accessible, efficient, and effective for everyone involved. Speak with our experts at +1 (833) 762-3555 to know more about our services. Or you can walk in at 1797 Pitkin Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11212, or write us an e-mail at roc@staging.roadlcare.com.