Preventive healthcare (alternately preventive medicine or prophylaxis) consists of measures taken for disease prevention, as opposed to disease treatment. Digital preventative healthcare incorporates modern, safe and secure digital diagnostics and communications equipment to provide healthcare solutions in urban, rural and very remote locations around the world.
What is Telemedicine? Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical health care at a distance. It helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations.
Telemedicine includes a growing variety of applications and services using two-way video, email, smart phones, wireless tools and other forms of telecommunications technology. The use of telemedicine has spread rapidly and is now becoming integrated into the ongoing operations of hospitals, specialty departments, home health agencies, private physician offices as well as consumer’s homes and workplaces.
Benefits of Telemedicine
- Improved Access: Telemedicine brings healthcare services to patients in distant locations. Not only does telemedicine improve access to patients but it also allows physicians and health facilities to expand their reach, beyond their own offices. Given the provider shortages throughout the world--in both rural and urban areas--telemedicine has a unique capacity to increase service to millions of new patients.
- Cost Efficiencies: Reducing or containing the cost of healthcare is one of the most important reasons for funding and adopting telehealth technologies. Telemedicine has been shown to reduce the cost of healthcare and increase efficiency through better management of chronic diseases, shared health professional staffing, reduced travel times, and fewer or shorter hospital stays.
- Improved Quality: Worldwide studies have consistently shown that the quality of healthcare services delivered via telemedicine are as good those given in traditional in-person consultations. In some specialties, particularly in mental health and ICU care, telemedicine delivers a superior product, with greater outcomes and patient satisfaction.
- Patient Demand: Global consumers seem to want telemedicine. The greatest impact of telemedicine is on the patient, their family and their community. Using telemedicine technologies reduces travel time and related stresses for the patient. Over the past 15 years, global studies have documented patient satisfaction and support for telemedical services. Such services offer patients the access to providers that might not be available otherwise, as well as medical services without the need to travel long distances.
Types Of Telemedicine
Over time, telemedicine has evolved from simple phone consultations (where the patient just calls a physician and tries to obtain diagnosis & treatment), to solutions involving remote diagnostics.
- In-Person Consult: Traditional model of patient physically visiting physician, is most effective, but has cost & convenience issues
- Phone Consult: Patient calls physician for diagnosis & treatment
- Web Chat: Patient & Physician chat online
- Store & Forward: Information is captured from the patient at one time/ location, but evaluated by a Physician at another time/location
- Video Chat: Patient & Physician interact online with video & audio
- DIAGNOSTIC TELEMEDICINE: portable diagnostics devices at patient-end, along with video/audio communication, significantly improves both the scope and quality of treatment.
The table below compares the various types of telemedicine on key features like effectiveness, cost and convenience.
| Phone Consult | Web Chat | Store & Forward | Video Chat | Diagnostic Telemedicine | In-Person Consult | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effectiveness | Low | Very Low | Delayed | Medium | Medium- High | Best |
| Cost | Low | Low | Low- Medium | Low- Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Convenience | High | High | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Growth | Low- Medium | Low- Medium | Medium | Medium | High | Medium |
| Target Demographic | Urban | Urban | Urban | Rural | Urban & Rural | Urban & Rural |
Diagnostic Telemedicine
MyCliniCare offers DIAGNOSTIC telemedicine solutions, where world-class proven diagnostic devices are deployed at patient’s end, and integrated seamlessly with low-bandwidth communication software having video, audio and image sharing capabilities, to facilitate a wide variety of diagnostic services. The end-to-end Diagnostic Telemedicine solution, is viable, scalable & portable, and enables physicians to provide remote care with high confidence, based on the patient’s video & audio, and most importantly, based on the output of the various diagnostics devices.
Patient Side
Registered Nurse on site with patient & MyCliniCare Diagnostics equipment.
Live session (even with 1mbps signal), via Cellular Network or VSAT (in absence of mobile network)
Physician Side
Physician/Specialist at remote site (hospital, clinic, home) on standard tablet/laptop and headphones, connected via existing broadband (or VSAT if patient on VSAT)
Technology & Timing are Right
- Technology has arrived: portable & modular device Technology now provides a way to sense and monitor heart disease, inflammation, infection, cancer, diabetic condition, and chronic condition status using technology.
- Quantum shift to Digital Healthcare: The old methods of verbal description that the physician rarely listens to, and in-person visual inspection are becoming less important. The monitoring technologies and blood work are being used in combination with imaging and telemetrics to provide a real time, continuous valuation of patient condition.
- Timing & scale is right: As new telemedicine equipment and services proliferate globally, more and more vital signs based healthcare delivery is being implemented.
- Communication has arrived: whether it is 2G/3G/4G cellular networks, or ISRO satellite-based communication for ultra-remote areas, the coverage, speeds & costs of data & voice communication has finally arrived to allow mass deployment of Diagnostics Telemedicine