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How are Telemedicine Apps Enhancing Urgent Care?

The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 triggered many technological changes. In particular, the health industry embraced remote care. It was a necessary adjustment to protect people from exposure to the virus. Some of the developments included the adoption of telemedicine and telehealth.

Telemedicine and telehealth facilitate the provision of remote medical services to patients. This technology bridges the gap between the physician and the patient through virtual interactions. A medical practitioner can monitor patients online by relying on the Internet of Things devices. Besides, patients can share their data, enabling physicians to offer the appropriate interventions virtually.

This article provides a solid argument on why telemedicine apps are significant to enhancing urgent care. It also compares the top telemedicine apps to help patients choose the one that fits their needs.

Telemedicine vs. telehealth

From a hierarchical point of view, telehealth ranks higher than telemedicine. Telehealth covers a broader scope of health services compared to telemedicine. Ideally, telehealth refers to both remote clinical and non-clinical healthcare services.

On the other hand, telemedicine is specific to remote clinical healthcare services. Telemedicine technology is used often during follow-up visits and the management of chronic health conditions. A host of other clinical services like medication management and specialist consultations are also part of telemedicine. In contrast, telehealth includes non-clinical services like provider training and medical education.

While telemedicine is a branch of telehealth, telehealth is a branch of E-health. E-health is a broader reference to healthcare services and online medical information for health professionals and patients. It also entails training programs for health systems management. At the level of telemedicine, the services become more complex and specialized.

Why telemedicine apps are significant to providing urgent care

1. Providing convenience

In times of urgent care, patients need their health conditions attended to as quickly as possible. Telemedicine guarantees that because of its convenience. An individual can get healthcare services at the comfort of their homes. It takes the click of a button to turn on a computer and receive guidance from a medical practitioner on what measures to apply to treat an illness.

2. Controlling infectious ailments

During times of contagious ailments, such as COVID-19, the priority of healthcare centers is to minimize contact amongst patients. The aim is to reduce exposure to infections at the hospital. So, telemedicine apps allow patients to receive virtual care from the comfort of their homes.

3. Offering specialized patient assessment

Telemedicine apps enable patients to identify a list of specialist practitioners remotely. So, these applications can allow one to contact practitioners for specialized home care services. Besides, because of their proximity, the practitioners can offer crucial health care information related to environmental factors, for example, cases of patient allergic reactions.

4. Improving patient care quality

With telemedicine apps, patients receive medical services at faster timelines than ever before. The healthcare system addresses issues quickly to improve patients' outcomes. These apps have embraced a patient-centered approach, resulting in better quality urgent care.

5. Easing the economic burden

Incidents of urgent care may find patients economically unprepared to shoulder the expenses associated with treatment. However, telemedicine cuts down on costs like transportation, making healthcare services relatively cheaper.

The usage of telemedicine apps in the wake of COVID-19

Telemedicine apps have become a common platform for delivering healthcare services since WHO declared the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020. Healthcare centers found telemedicine apps a sustainable solution that guarantees the virus spread. Telemedicine apps bridge the gap between the patient, the physician, and the healthcare system as a whole while minimizing in-person interactions amongst people.

During the ongoing pandemic, telemedicine apps have facilitated communication between physicians and patients virtually, ensuring containment of the spread of the virus. Using telemedicine apps reduces the chances of healthcare practitioners and patients contracting COVID-19.

Besides, this technology allows people suffering from chronic conditions to obtain treatment and consultancy virtually. They also reduce the number of patients that doctors interact with, thus minimizing the risk of contracting COVID-19.

Challenges in telemedicine software development

1. Data security

The issue of data security is always a concern because everyone wants their data to be safe, especially medical information. Patients have reservations about telemedicine technology because of the security risks associated with software development for these systems. The amount of data that telemedicine apps and software collect are intense, and many patients may question how hospitals can assure its safety.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) policies impose stringent healthcare data security measures. Becoming HIPAA compliant is challenging for telemedicine app developers. Even with such standards, the risk of unauthorized data access exists, raising concerns about using these apps.

2. User experience

Developers aim to build software that offers a great user experience. Nevertheless, one of the biggest challenges when developing software, including telehealth apps, is incorporating a user-friendly interface.

Telemedicine faces a more significant challenge because developers need to build software targeting two different user groups- the physicians and patients. This situation presents challenges of functionality and technical feasibility.

Implementing the UI/UX while preserving consistency between the physician's app and the patient's app is challenging. It entails creating apps that potentially rely on two different graphic user interfaces and offer an easy-to-navigate layout for both groups. So, it takes high innovativeness to achieve a unified solution for the two groups, and not all software developers can do that.

3. Back-end integration

Another challenge encountered when developing telemedicine software-related back-end integration. It is challenging to incorporate a back-end that would facilitate data exchange between the components of the doctors' and patients' apps. The back-end integration is a requirement of HIPAA policies.

4. Unreliable internet connection

Telemedicine services require internet access to operate efficiently. The virtual interaction between the physician and the patient requires a reliable and stable internet connection. However, since the internet speeds vary depending on the strength of the installed internet and region, among other factors, patients with unstable internet connectivity may miss out on these services.

Top five telemedicine apps

1. Lemonaid Health

Lemonaid Health is an application platform that relies on machine learning algorithms to simplify diagnosis and treatment. Patients select the service and answer basic health questions. They can then pay a fee before a doctor attends them virtually. However, the patient faces the risk of missing out on a vital diagnostic sign or symptom because of its virtuality.

2. LiveHealth

LiveHealth is a Laboratory Information Management System (LMS) Software. It provides a list of doctors specialized in different fields where the patient can consult one depending on their needs. The doctor can diagnose and prescribe drugs for common conditions like the flu, bronchitis, skin infections, and allergies—the app guarantees patient-centered care. Nevertheless, the virtual interactions with physicians are short, and they do not prescribe long-term medications.

3. PlushCare

PlushCare is a telemedicine app that is advantageous because it accepts insurance information. It relies on technologies such as jQuery, Google Analytics, and HTML5. One can then get prescriptions for emergency and non-emergency health conditions. However, the app does not let the patient choose their preferred physician.

4. Amwell

Amwell uses advanced AI technology to offer online health care services. Patients see the doctor virtually for about three minutes on average. It is advantageous because individuals can access highly trained doctors, psychotherapists, and registered dietitians. The app is also easy to navigate. However, Amwell suffers limitations when patient conditions require lab tests.

5. Talkspace

Talkspace is one of the best virtual therapy apps for mental health conditions. Like PlushCare, Talkspace relies on technologies such as jQuery, Google Analytics, and HTML5. Talkspace hosts several mental health professionals that help deliver psychiatry services to the patients. The app is popular, considering its high accessibility. It also offers high flexibility, as one can switch therapists easily without giving reasons. However, it limits its live sessions to high-priced plans.

Conclusion

Technology is changing tremendously, and the healthcare industry is gradually adapting to this trend. The coronavirus pandemic taught the world to embrace remote healthcare services more. Now telemedicine and telehealth are crucial because of the circumstances in the world today. Not only is it a safe way to administer healthcare services, but it is also relatively cheaper.

Many telemedicine apps facilitate the administration of remote healthcare services available today. In this article, we have discussed LiveHealth, Plushcare, Talkspace, and Amwell, Lemonaid.