Being at home due to COVID-19 has its share of negatives and positives, while the former outweigh the latter. However, positives lead to a surge in innovation, which has resulted in overall beneficial and inventive solutions to the issues we have been facing for decades.
Telemedicine could be the future of medicine, allowing people to remotely access healthcare.
We need to be adaptable in all aspects of our lives, including medicine, and one answer to how we can be resilient is in exploring Telemedicine as a scientific health solution for the present.
During a time like this, we often turn to the most inspired scientific inventions of humankind, such as technology, paving our way from boredom and catering to our needs. From keeping up with the government’s latest announcements to following the activities of various celebrities on social media to catching up with our favorite television shows, technology has taken over our existence. In short, by the time the dust settles our outlook towards technology will change and its usage will increase multifold.
Fictions around Artificial Intelligence usually speak about uprisings and over-intrusion and often portray technology in a negative light. I believe that in the right hands and with the right mission, technology may actually save us and be a harbinger of hope. Issues of protection of privacy and confidentiality as a patient right have been consistently debated in the past few months; providing healthcare services to those who need it the most, with minimum in-person interaction, definitely appears to be a step in the right direction. Enter Telemedicine.
Telemedicine (also referred to as telehealth or e-medicine) allows healthcare professionals to treat patients in remote locations using telecommunications technology.
In addition to providing timely access to healthcare facilities and saving cost, especially for the vast majority of patients in rural India, the virtual dispensation of medical advice through the use of Telemedicine becomes most pertinent in the current pandemic scenario. With telemedicine, there is also a higher possibility of maintaining records and documentation and hence continuity of healthcare history and better legal protection.
This is my solution to the current chaotic situation. We are armed with the tools of technology; our minds full of ideas on how to make the world a better place and our hearts burning with passion and compassion for those who need our help the most. We will work to provide awareness about telemedicine and hopefully implement processes to allow it to exist.
Our real power, however, will be resilience. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, our young minds will strive to rebuild what was once a deeply divided world and, as it seems now, a world on the margins, into a world renewed. One filled with new prospects and opportunities and I believe that Telemedicine will bring that tomorrow to us, today.
All images used in this article are for representational purposes only.