Telemedicine in Primary Care

Telemedicine is being widely adopted in primary care at a fast pace and has brought many benefits in offering consultation services for patients. This implies that telemedicine through the use of the communication technologies expends the gap that separates the patients from the healthcare professionals in the hard-to-reach areas.

Telemedicine lowers barriers that may be faced in accessing care especially in the rural regions. It allows scheduled care and constant check-ups on illnesses or diseases that persist. There are some issues, critical to meeting, while implementing telemedicine: patient’s privacy and security, guarantee of similarly applicable conditions for all patients, and compatibility of telemedicine systems with current healthcare facilities.

Improved patient satisfaction and solving the problem of high costs among patients are two outstanding outcomes. It is noted that remote consultation has enhanced the care of chronic illness and availability of services. Recent research indicates that telemedicine can decrease hospitalizations together with ER visits because the timely and sufficient services are accessed through this method.

Author: Samuel Hawthorne

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