Usually, people believe that telehealth and telemedicine are
one and the same. Well, they are both broadly considered to be related to
online medicine but do have quite a few clear differences. Basically,
telemedicine is the use of technology to access medical care remotely and
telehealth is the delivering of all types of health services and care from a
distance.
Now, you might be getting slightly confused here so just
think of it this way. In telemedicine, you can consult doctors and physicians
from your home while with telehealth you can also get access to more care
services including training and educational programs.
This brings us to the question, is one of them better? Let’s
explore each briefly.
Telemedicine
Many people can get confused about telemedicine and how to
go about it to get the most accurate result from the doctor or physician. It is
actually quite simple. All you have to do is understand this field and then you
can decide what’s best for you. Telemedicine has three categories of care;
synchronous, monitoring remotely and store-and-forward.
Synchronous is the most commonly known branch of
telemedicine as it is about getting in touch with doctors online and consulting
with them virtually. You can do these visits in synchronous telemedicine from
your house or even at a healthcare facility where a professional would be able
to guide you. So the care you get is immediate with several options for
treatment as well.
When it comes to monitoring remotely, the patient can do
this by themselves. With a medical device like a glucose monitor, they can
record data which can then be sent to their doctor or healthcare expert. There
are other conditions such as blood pressure and cardiac problems which can also
be tracked through remote monitoring. Since it can be accessed from anywhere,
you could keep a check on your condition with telemedicine
in New York and send records to your doctor in another location.
Lastly, there is the store-and-forward, which makes it
easier for physicians and consultants to get back to their patients at
different times. You will have to store all your medical data on a portal and
then the doctor can look at it when they have time.
Telehealth
This is also about providing care and health services to
patients but you can find more information and education as well. So it’s not
just visiting or consulting with medical professionals virtually like telemedicine in New York but providing
other health services too. With telehealth, you get alert tools that can help
you renew prescriptions, look for specialists and regularly update health
records.
While there are no specific categories in this, you do get
to have patient portals which can make it a lot easier to make appointments and
communicate with physicians. For example, you can have your own patient portal
which will have all your past and previous records as well and the medications
that you regularly take. Telehealth allows your doctor to access these from
their clinic or hospital.
Other than this, there are health apps and education on
different health conditions so that patients can take better care of
themselves.
Which is better?
They both have their benefits and advantages. If you want to
immediately consult your doctor about an illness, then telemedicine is the way
to go. Otherwise, you can use telehealth services to monitor your health
condition. If you happen to be in the area, you can look up doctors or
healthcare consultants via telemedicine
in New York.
