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Covid19 has impacted everyone to some degree and primarily affects people with disabilities, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and frontline workers. While anyone is susceptible to getting covid19, individuals with certain health conditions or illnesses are often at a higher risk and develop complications as a result. Some people may develop common symptoms, while up to one-third of those infected are asymptomatic.

The Effects of Lockdown Measures on Physical and Mental Health

With lockdown measures in place in many countries and regions worldwide, many people now work or attend school from home or have lost their jobs entirely. Caregivers and emergency healthcare workers are at greater risk for coming into contact with covid19 at work, even with personal protection equipment, and taking all necessary precautions. School-aged children, people who live alone, and vulnerable individuals have less in-person socializing. They may experience a sense of despair and isolation, even with virtual meetings and social media availability.

The strain of adapting to a worldwide pandemic can have both physical and mental health implications. For individuals affected directly or indirectly by covid19, there is the added risk of complications from the virus that can lead to long-term effects and the impact on mental health.

The Added Risk of Covid19 on Frontline Workers

Healthcare workers are at the highest risk for coming into direct contact with covid19 and often have to make arrangements to live separately from family or remotely to minimize the risk of spreading the virus. Frontline workers in the food industry, retail, and other public areas of work are now at more risk than ever. This is mostly a risk factor for frontline workers in highly populated urban centers where there are more confirmed cases.

As people worldwide adapt to the pandemic’s continual developments, more online resources and support systems are standard, providing helpful advice and healthcare to many. Since lockdown measures during covid19, more people have reported using online and health helplines to manage their situation. Many people also find updates and research on vaccines and treatments helpful, providing a sense of relief and hope.

Chronic disease, an illness that lasts for at least three months (such as cancer), is a significant concern for healthcare workers. The gravity of these diseases is illustrated by a statistic from The World Health Organization, which claims that chronic diseases cause over half of reported deaths in India.

COVID-19 has made it harder to treat chronic conditions. The pandemic has led to an increased use of telemedicine, a unique way to manage chronic disease and still maintain quality care. One aspect of telemedicine is remote patient monitoring, which involves communicating with healthcare workers virtually.

As the world gradually returns to normal, the popularity of telemedicine has continued to increase.

How Telemedicine Helps Treat Chronic Diseases

India’s rural population is reportedly around 85 crore, and healthcare is not readily accessible in these areas. Patients with chronic diseases often need specialized care that cannot be found.

Fortunately, telemedicine helps solve the issue of difficult access. It allows patients to consult specialists from home while reducing travel costs.

Advantages of Telemedicine

Those with chronic diseases often experience new symptoms, which can be concerning. By consulting doctors via video, patients can efficiently get treatment and avoid any repercussions of ignoring new signs.

Telemedicine also decreases the level of hospital readmissions. If doctors can monitor the patient remotely, they can ensure that they maintain an efficient treatment plan.

Ourdoctor telemedicine services makes it easy for patients who do not have health insurance be able to see a physician from the comfort of their own home or anywhere where they have .a laptop, phone, or tablet as well as internet access. Visit Ourdoctor.com for more information about how you can sign up and schedule your online doctor consultation. 

Telemedicine, a physically distanced way to receive medical help, allows patients to receive treatment and diagnosis from medical professionals from their own homes to remain physically distanced.

The American College of Rheumatology presented new statistics at the ACR’s annual conference, showing that telemedicine’s increased use has led to a decreased amount of appointment cancellations. Using webcams, smartphones, and other HIPPA compliant video messaging platforms, medical professionals, doctors, and nurses can safely provide care from a different location than their patients.

When COVID-19 began, rheumatology clinics and medical practices had to cut down on the number of patients they could see due to infection risk, especially with their higher-risk patients. With less accessible appointments comes an increased risk of disease flares and even the need for hospitalization.

Telemedicine allows these patients to receive care while following the proper precautions to ensure they stay as healthy as possible and are not at risk of contracting the virus.

In an attempt to see how the recent use of telemedicine could affect the number of cancellations and no shows at rheumatology clinics, researchers from Cleveland, Ohio’s MetroHealth Medical Center compared retrospective data spanning 20 weeks. During the ten-week pre-COVID phase, from January 3rd to March 10th, clinics only offered appointments in the rheumatology clinics. Data from these weeks showed that about 31% of appointments were canceled.

Over the next ten weeks, from March 16th to May 31st, there were almost zero cancellations with the addition of telemedicine. The second phase of data also revealed an increase in completed appointments compared to when telemedicine was not an option.

More diagnostic appointments, such as joint injections, will still require in-person care. More technical appointments can be administered with telemedicine. The convenience of digital visits with telemedicine lowers cancellations by making appointments more accessible.
Moving forward, MetroHealth’s Division of Rheumatology hopes to have up to 40% of follow-up visits conducted via telemedicine.

Just about anyone who has been to an emergency room knows that care in the ER is anything but urgent. Unless you come in with a life-threatening injury on a stretcher, chances are, you will wait for hours before being seen. This inconvenience is incredibly frustrating for someone dealing with an acute health crisis who require immediate attention. Patient care is often compromised as doctors hurry through patients, and most patients leave unsatisfied with their experience.

A University of Texas researcher decided to take a closer look at the issue by investigating whether or not the use of telemedicine could help solve ER overcrowding. Researcher Dr. Shujing Sun explained that the enormous problem is large patient flow and small ER room capacity. In other words, there is no room in the ER to service the number of people who need to be seen after hours when no other health provider is available.
She explained that the ER’s overcrowding issue is straining the safety net the ER was created to provide, and urgent action needs to be taken to address the issue. To decrease financial costs, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce mortality rates, a better way to handle ER patients needs to be devised.

Along with her colleagues, Dr. Sun looked at how telemedicine could help remedy the overcrowding. While telemedicine has seen a massive surge in adaptation since the pandemic, it has not yet fully been utilized within the field of emergency medicine.

Sun described two significant changes to the way ER telemedicine is presented versus traditional home-based telemedicine. First, patients have to offer when they need the ER. Second, telemedicine allows on-site assistance from various physicians instead of just limited staff within the ER service.

ER visits increased 27% from 2000 to 2015, and the COVID-19 pandemic is expecting to continue to spur further increases. ER telemedicine aims to help increase physician efficiency and facilitate workflow. The study found that ER telemedicine could help rescue wait times and reduce the length of stay by merely reducing ER waiting time.

There has been a surge in the adoption and implementation of telemedicine, especially with the coronavirus pandemic crisis. For this reason, the US Healthcare officials recently converged at the Becker’s Healthcare Telehealth Virtual Forum to address the challenges and opportunities in telehealth and virtual care. The following eight observations were reported.

• Organizations that had invested in telehealth confirmed that they were well equipped for more virtual services even though some of the systems still faced significant setbacks following the increasing demand

• Telemedicine has offered significant support to numerous US health systems, particularly during the pandemic. However, some of the significant challenges affecting them include lack of broadband internet access or video recording devices by patients.

• Telemedicine in the post-pandemic era will depend on factors such as government regulations and demand for such services. It is, however, unclear how it will incorporate into specialty care.

• Hospitals should invest in efficient and straightforward digital workflows for easy virtual operations. Besides, patient information should be readily available in the EHR once they are logged in for a virtual session.

• Artificial Intelligence has not been fully exploited in telemedicine, and there are innumerable possibilities of integrating it into healthcare.

• Consumer and payer demand will define the ultimate business model of telehealth after the pandemic. Patients will be provided with a range of payment options, while payers will have to integrate telehealth into their value-based care models. However, this changeover will pose a significant risk to the many providers still based on a fee-for-service environment.

• Challenges such as government regulations and healthcare systems are bound to affect the future of new virtual care and telehealth services. As such, providers will have to partner with vendors to ensure that the new implementations serve the patient population equally.

• Coronavirus has disrupted the training system for clinicians and patients on telehealth. However, healthcare systems need to advance their approaches and counter the massive demand for telehealth services in a limited time frame. Leaders proposed developing training materials in chapters that can be easily uploaded as platforms are subject to change. 

With all these factors in mind, telemedicine will evolve because of virtual healthcare demand to continue to keep people safe. 

Of all the perks healthcare providers can get from medicine, saving time and money by serving patients on time is vital. Thanks to this platform, patients do not need to drive long distances to see their doctors. All they need is an internet-supported platform to enjoy healthcare services from the comfort of their homes.

Due to the increase in infections resulting from COVID-19, telemedicine could be the only thing that can amelioratedoctor-patient interactions. The need to reduce infections as a result of physical interactions in healthcare institutions is essential. As more people embrace the idea of virtually consulting with their doctors, containing the virus and other infections will be easy. With time, both the patients and providers can take advantage of all the resources needed to save time and money.

Until recently, doctors had no way of billing patients for the services they provided using telemedicine. But since more patients are coming out to seek telehealth services, the medical sector is looking to find ways of ensuring they get the patient-focused care they need.

In the past, healthcare providers only relied on telemedicine to diagnose patients with spine conditions. Patients were required to provide their details through the web forms of calling their doctors directly to request a review of their spine MRI. They could receive their results via phone or email. Once their spine diagnosis was confirmed, they were required to make physical visits to the nearest spine care institution for treatment.

The success of telemedicine can only depend on two factors, as summarized below:

1. Virtual healthcare platform for doctors to connect with patients, Ourdoctor telemedicine service.
2. Healthcare services need to comply with HIPAA regulations that allow them to know the patient’s medical history. This is in order to make an accurate diagnosis and develop the best intervention to resolve their medical issues. 

With these two factors working in tandem, telemecidine can be successful in taking care of virtual diagnosing of patients virtually. 

Since Covid-19 began its spread across the nation, the healthcare industry has scrambled to set up comprehensive telehealth services across the country. Psychiatric centers, therapists, counselors, and more have begun moving their appointments to an entirely virtual space. While this allows for safer meetings between patients and medical professionals, is it something to which all Americans have equal access?

The short answer to this question is no. While many Americans have gained access to technology like smartphones and the like in recent years, there is still a sizable portion of the population (roughly 30% of families earning below $30K/year) that can’t afford them. The number is even higher when it comes to owning a traditional computer (46%) and having access to a broadband internet connection (44%). Additionally, most working-class American families are not tablet owners.

Socioeconomic disparity like this plays a large role in access to virtual care. As medical professionals move into online spaces, they are effectively cutting low-income Americans out–and that’s not all. The elderly are overwhelmingly at a disadvantage when we’re discussing telehealth – over 77% of geriatric patients struggle with virtual care due to a combination of cognitive decline, hearing/visual disabilities, and anxiety.

Another group affected negatively by this telehealth transition are those Americans with language deficiency issues, including those with speech impairments and the lessened ability to speak or understand English. While video conferencing applications like Zoom do offer additional language tools to aid such patients, the fact is that the combination of virtual appointments and difficult language used in healthcare settings has drastically lowered meeting attendance rates for members of this population.

With so many populace members negatively affected by the switch into telehealth, the recommended course of action is as follows. First, audio-only appointments need to happen more often and in conjunction with video-conferencing software to guide patients who have problems using technology more fully. Healthcare providers also need to address the lack of information and educational content available to patients who have difficulty speaking and understanding English.

Telemedicine companies such as Ourdoctor, have had a positive impact and have narrowed the negatives that can come with using telemdicine. Ourdoctor is very easy to use. One of the biggest benefits of signing up for Ourdoctor telehealth services is that you do not have to have insurance. Visit Ourdoctor.com to learn more.