How Telemedicine Will Shape Healthcare in the Next Decade

The current global health crisis has highlighted how fragile our healthcare system is. Indeed, none of us expected to face adversity this severe with hospitals struggling to accommodate everyone and healthcare workers experiencing extreme burnout. Because of the pandemic, healthcare workers and institutions have pushed for the adoption of one innovative solution that proves to continuously transform the healthcare industry: telemedicine.

A report by The Business Research Company highlights how the telemedicine market is expected to grow to $195.05 billion by 2023. This is mainly due to the increase in demand brought upon by the pandemic, as well as the massive support provided by government-led initiatives. In this post, we’re going to take a look at how telemedicine will impact the healthcare landscape in the future.

Telemedicine Will Be Integrated into Healthcare Educational Curriculums

Many of today’s educational institutions that offer healthcare programs need to routinely update their curriculums in order to address the ever-changing needs of the public. To prepare the professionals planning to join the healthcare workforce, we will see many of today’s schools and universities integrate telehealth tools and practices into their curriculum. Telehealth is an evolving technology and science, so it’s important that the education sector can keep up with the public’s demand for it. Including this in the educational curriculum for healthcare workers can also help them see the value of connecting with patients and other healthcare workers. This can encourage them to establish a collaborative and nurturing relationship with peers and patients once they start practicing in the field.

Telemedicine Will Improve and Streamline Data Collection

The healthcare industry relies on highly organized data so that doctors can access patient information with ease, as well as promote a collaborative relationship between healthcare providers. In this regard, Electronic Medical Records (EMR) are quickly replacing paper-based medical records. Through EMRs, you can easily find a patient’s medical history, previous diagnoses, medications, and other important medical information.

Telemedicine providers will benefit from this technology as it can improve communication between patients and healthcare workers, and enhance overall healthcare services. Data collection alone has become such an essential field, that it has paved the way for nursing informatics specialists, which has become one of the most in-demand careers in nursing. Nurses who specialize in informatics are trusted to manage EMRs as they are trained to be proficient in various IT systems. Aside from ensuring that EMRs remain accurate and accessible, nursing informatics specialists also tweak the data collection system for EMRs and help increase its efficiency. So we can expect to see telemedicine impact even more healthcare sectors in the near future.

Telemedicine Will Drastically Improve Hospital Wait Times

Another way that telemedicine will impact the healthcare industry is by giving patients direct access to different specialists faster. This can then improve hospital wait times and speed up the treatment process. Healthcare institutions that want to fully utilize telemedicine can create specialty centers where they can give patients 24/7 access to specialized physicians. In the past, physicians would have had to get their patients to book a schedule with a specialist after a check-up. But with these streamlined centers, patients can have easy access to multiple specialists and finish their initial check-ups without having to go to multiple places.

Telemedicine Will Make Preventative Care More Accessible

In a nutshell, preventative care focuses on preventing injuries, diseases, or illnesses and includes annual doctor visits, screenings, and immunizations. The CDC notes that chronic diseases that can be avoided through preventative care services account for at least 75% of the country’s healthcare spending. This means that if everyone had easier access to preventative care, $260 billion wouldn’t have to be spent on avoidable illnesses every year and over 100,000 lives would be saved. As telehealth medicine makes it more convenient to access specialists for faster treatment and follow-up care, more people will be encouraged to take advantage of preventative care services and keep themselves in tip-top shape.

In these desperate times, the future of the healthcare industry and the well-being of everyone relies on the widespread adoption and acceptance of telemedicine. If you want to read more insights on telemedicine and the healthcare industry, head over to our blog for more insights.

Specially written for teamIDS.com

By: Rilee Jaryn