The pandemic forced many industries to pivot and healthcare is no exception. From virtual visits and online medical records to payment management portals, digital paperwork, and reminders, healthcare organizations have really made telemedicine and telehealth mainstream mediums to treat their patients. But just what is telemedicine and telehealth? Are they the same thing?
What Is Telemedicine?
Healthcare providers use technology to deliver medical and treatment-related information to their patients. The patients’ doctors use remote video conferencing software to talk with patients, monitor their symptoms / progress, administer diagnostic tests / imaging, conduct evaluations, and provide access to specialists.
What Is Telehealth?
Similar in nature to telemedicine, telehealth includes services administered by pharmacists, nurses, and social workers. They too provide remote healthcare services, but it goes beyond what the patient’s doctor does. Specialists evaluate and help with the patient’s health and medication needs. They also pinpoint health issues and detect changes in medical conditions. Items they may help with is things like education on the patient’s health, (remote) monitoring of vital signs / blood pressure, and based on findings, they can (remotely) prescribe medications and treatments.
With social distancing and quarantining due to COVID-19 not going anywhere anytime soon, more medical health centers have and will look telemedicine and telehealth to treat their patients and deliver medical care. Between telecommunication apps and video conferencing tools, patients are able to get medical help without leaving their home, but it doesn’t come without its pitfalls.
Dr. Lisa R. Bardack who is the medical director of CareMount Medical and chair of the department of internal medicine/endocrine/rheumatology explained that using a telehealth platform can lead to three major things (stressors):
1.) Technology Isn’t Perfect - “When a technology glitch occurs during the visit and you can no longer hear or see the patient, or the patient can no longer hear or see you, it is frustrating for both the provider and the patient,” she said. “That is something that never occurs when you’re in an exam room, but is a variable when using technology.”
2.) Inappropriate Triage (does this patient need to come into clinic or do we need to send them to the ER) - “Triaging for telehealth is very new, however, and when triage mistakes occur, it can really raise stress levels. If you’re in an appointment with a patient and realize it may not be the appropriate appointment setting, you then have to quickly think through how to best take care of the patient – either in the office today, or wait until tomorrow, or send him to get a blood test or an X-ray. These are all new decision points for providers.”
3.) Time - “If I am running late, I may not have anyone who can tell the patient what is going on. The patient might become stressed sitting at home wondering if the technology is working or if the doctor forgot about her. From the doctor’s perspective, I’m stressed because I know someone’s waiting for me on her telehealth visit, but I’m not finished with the previous patient. With telehealth visits, you need more precision with your schedule.”
While telehealth does add new stressors to both providers and patients, it also is able to mitigate stress too. In some ways, telehealth is more convenient- both the healthcare provider and the patient can conduct a ‘visit’ from virtually anywhere- which seems intuitive, but with a HUGE shift in peoples schedules and personal commitments (kids doing at-home learning, spouse working from home, etc.) it’s more important than ever. Another obvious pro is it creates a much safer workplace- with far less patients circulating the clinic/hospital it allows for a safer environment for older/high-risk providers to keep working. One the reverse, it allows for high-risk patients to see a doctor without risking their health coming into a healthcare facility.
With any virtual platform, privacy is always a question. The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued guidance to empower health care providers to serve patients through telehealth during the national public health emergency.
HIPAA-covered health care providers/organizations may, provide telehealth services to their patients using remote communication technologies (FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype) for telehealth visits, even if the application does not fully comply with HIPAA rules.
However, providers should not use any platforms that are public-facing (Facebook Live or TikTok) to provide telehealth information.
Like anything, there are pros and cons, each health system needs to evaluate the concerns of their employees and patients to decide what platform is best for their needs. Here at Extract, our HealthyData platform works in tandem with telehealth. Clinicians are pulling up patient charts as they’re visiting with patients, and can be more efficient and attentive to the patient if the discrete data is readily available in the EMR as opposed to being in a fax or image file that needs to be searched through. HealthyData uses optical character recognition to read the text on a given file/image/fax, and then is automatically delivers the relevant data to the patient’s file. If you’d like to learn more about our platform, reach out today.
Sources:
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/pandemic-era-burnout-telehealth-managers-get-pushed-max
About the Author: Taylor Genter
Taylor is the Marketing Specialist at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them