​Healthcare after pandemic:

Telemedicine is here to stay

After the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year, there virtually isn’t a sector or a company that is not influenced by the coronavirus outbreak in some way.

Telemedicine – helps patients, supports doctors

Digital health, and telemedicine, is no exception. Over the last few months, as live hospital visits got restricted, telemedicine providers across the globe witnessed spikes in demand as people scrambled to get medical advice.

In times like these, telemedicine is essential, to patients and doctors alike. It is the most convenient, and often the only option for people to talk to a doctor, without exposing themselves and others to the risk of infection, and without putting further strain on the heavily overloaded hospitals.

Online consultations are on the rise: 10 reasons to choose telehealth solutions over traditional communication tools.

In the last months, doctors in the UK saw a clear shift – with telemedicine, healthcare has moved from their office to where their patients are – home, school, work, nursing home, etc. Especially with the live HD video-consultation, we now see a different dimension of the relationship between the specialists and their patients, as now practically the doctor comes to “visit” the users at their homes.

This seems to be a win-win situation for both parties and the feedback shows, that telemedicine helps doctors provide better healthcare and boosts their efficiency and practice. This means more patients, happier patients, and higher revenue for the professionals.

Don’t miss: Most doctors are launching telemedicine in 2020 – and this is why you should, too

“In the old days, when patients would spend time and money to come physically to an office appointment, It felt obnoxious to rush through a 5-minute visit for a patient who may have spent half their day (or more) to get in to see me. With telemedicine, that has gone completely out of the door. The visits are much more efficient. My average visit length has plummeted.”, says the cardiologist Ethan Weiss on Twitter,  “I also like spending time with my family so in a sense the added efficiency has afforded me more time to do that”.

More and more patients and doctors started communicating via telemedicine platforms during the lockdown of the last few months, but it looks like apps, like Healee have become the “new normal” way of accessing healthcare.

“Recently, I’ve been asking my patients at the end of each telehealth visit if they would like to return to live visits.  90% of them say ‘no thanks’ “, says the psychiatrist Howard Liu on Twitter.

“The logistics of driving, parking, crowded waiting rooms, etc. is daunting even without COVID!”