What Is Telehealth? Explained In 200 Words

Telehealth is an integrated fusion of technology with healthcare, primarily to handle long-distance clinical and non-clinical services.

It comprises of a wide range of techniques to enhance healthcare mechanisms and bridges the physical gap with virtual medical, public health, administration and educational services.

It leverages telecommunication technologies and digital information to offer best of healthcare services.

Objectives

• Enhance quality of healthcare and reach out to a wider audience, including rural areas
• Better coordination between patients, doctors, administrators, insurance agents etc.
• Encourage healthcare self-management by offering relevant support services
• Faster access to medical experts, especially for people with restricted access

Telehealth Attributes

• Real-time two-way interaction between stakeholders, through audio / video conferencing
• Mobile health (mHealth) services through mobile devices
• Wireless communications & digital photography
• Electronic data transmission, store and forward imaging with secure email communication
• Online patient portal with remote patient monitoring
• Simulated appointments, personal health records/apps

Telehealth & Telemedicine

Telehealth is often interchangeably used with Telemedicine, but there is a distinct difference between the two. Telehealth is more like a superset to Telemedicine, which looks only at faraway clinical services like diagnosis and monitoring.