Telemedicine & Medical Tourism: In The Wake Of COVID-19
What is
Telemedicine?
Ever sent a health question to your healthcare
provider through a patient portal? If yes, then you have probably experienced a
type of telemedicine! Sometimes called "telehealth" or "virtual
healthcare," telemedicine offers healthcare from a distance through
electronic information systems.
In the early days, telemedicine delivered care
through the telephone. But, today, telemedicine has encompassed a wide range of
electronic delivery systems that include secure messaging via email or text,
mobile health apps, live video chats, and even online visits.
Sometimes, during a virtual visit, your
healthcare professional can diagnose and treat your condition based on your
interview and the visual signs of your condition/illness. However, there are
times when a virtual visit can become a triage tool that helps your healthcare
provider in directing you to a particular course of action.
The Role of
Telemedicine in Medical Tourism
Medical Tourism, originally, is designed to
help people travel to destinations where medical treatment is less expensive.
The role of telemedicine in the Medical Tourism Industry is to provide
additional services to medical tourists, allowing them to have real-time
conversations with care providers from any part of the world. A direct video consultation
through telemedicine has allowed several patients to make more informed
decisions. The best part -- people look at a website, get a video consultation,
make a choice, and jump on a plane!
Telemedicine has improved efficiency, quality,
and customer service in Medical Tourism applications. One of the significant
benefits of telemedicine in the Medical Tourism industry is the potential
improvement of the process and quality of pre- and post-operative care. Today,
there are several preoperative telemedicine applications. Remote collection of
baseline data, performing preoperative physical examinations, and provision of
patient education has been successfully executed by many healthcare providers
worldwide, only via telemedicine.
The tool has been offering potential
improvement in the provision of exclusive customer service to numerous medical
tourists worldwide. For example, preoperative video-conferencing has allowed
patients, surgeons, family members, and other key medical staff to meet
face-to-face virtually.
Moreover,
telemedicine helps in providing postoperative care to the patients via virtual
follow-up visits after they return home. It has also enabled healthcare
providers to evaluate wound healing remotely. In this way, the level of
connectedness increases, helping improve the continuity of care throughout the
perioperative period with the patient and his/her care provider in the home
country.
Telemedicine
in the wake of COVID-19
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has
certainly wreaked havoc, infecting lacs of people worldwide. Government
officials of various countries have published telemedicine guidelines to
bolster healthcare delivery practices to people in urgent need of care.
In this period, telemedicine promises to
provide the safety of patients and healthcare professionals worldwide. It has
certainly given a chance to many medical tourists to stay at home and virtually
connect with a healthcare professional in any part of the world. This, in turn,
will help patients make informed decisions before taking a flight to the
destination country, once the COVID-19 crisis subsides.
Moreover, many healthcare providers and
government bodies are discouraging people from traveling to other countries,
telemedicine services might represent a more efficient way to receive initial
or preoperative care.
Because of its easy
accessibility and convenience, the COVID-19 outbreak has driven a mass adoption
of telemedicine and virtual visits, nowadays. Affordability, being one more
asset, telemedicine might represent the future of healthcare delivery in the
post-coronavirus world.
Telemedicine
and Medical Tourism in India
Although, this is a very challenging time for
the world, the most vulnerable, today, are the patients with underlying medical
conditions, such as cancer. Unfortunately, the people with such conditions who
travel to India for affordable treatment are left waiting in their home
countries due to the COVID-19 outbreak!
To their relief, Digital Health in India has
taken a monumental step to help such medical tourists get access to timely and
quality healthcare via telemedicine. One of the significant advantages of
telemedicine services in India is saving of effort and cost, as vulnerable
patients will not have to travel long distances for obtaining preoperative
consultation and care.
It is an excellent solution for providing
faster and timely access to patient education as well as in the reduction of
financial costs associated with long travel. This will enable medical tourists
to get medical opinions from various healthcare professionals, make a choice
and hop on a plane to India for their surgeries once the ongoing outbreak
dissolves.
About
IndiCure
At IndiCure, we are fortunate to be part of
the healthcare sector that people worldwide are at present the most in need of.
Being the leader in the Medical Tourism Industry in India, we are affiliated
with some of the best doctors that are now offering consultations through
Telemedicine.
Ranging from the transmission of patient
histories and digital photographs for diagnostic consultation to interactive
patient physical examination and remote monitoring of physiologic data for
disease management; IndiCure is offering a continuum of successful telemedicine
services amid the COVID-19 crisis.
You can choose to
share your medical reports or pictures of the target areas for plastic surgery,
and we shall send you a detailed treatment plan followed by a telephonic or a
video consultation by our doctors in India.
IndiCure is one of the largest and most renowned medical tourism companies in India offering medical treatment in association with the best surgeons and hospitals in India. You can write to us at info@indicure.com or call us at +91-9320036777 (India).
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