Telemedicine: a healthcare revolution

Telemedicine is a collective term for all medical services that take place without a physical meeting between a doctor and patient. The spatial distance is bridged by the use of telecommunications and information technologies. The term also covers the advancing digitisation of medical-administrative processes.

Although not yet widespread, the telemedicine concept is growing in importance and popularity. In March 2020, Australia added temporary telemedicine items to the Australian Medicare Benefits Schedule to encourage social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. In the year following (March 2020 – March 2021), 52.9 million telemedicine consultations occurred, out of 212 million total consultations.

Telemedicine is bringing fundamental changes to healthcare systems, creating both new opportunities and challenges. Advantages include higher quality standards in numerous disciplines and improved medical care through the use of modern communication technologies. At the same time, establishing technical interfaces, educating and training medical staff, and ensuring data protection and patient acceptance of the new technologies will pose challenges. Regardless of the hurdles, telemedicine is steadily progressing and revolutionising healthcare.

When the term telemedicine is used, it's usually referring to a specific field of application, such as teleradiology, telesurgery or telediabetology. You can also differentiate telemedical services according to users: Doc-2-Patient and Doc-2-Doc. Doc-2-Patient services target the relationship between doctor and patient. Using a special device that the patient carries with them, the attending physician can remotely check the patient's levels in real time and, if necessary, initiate medical measures. The patient is thus in constant contact with the attending physician. Doc-2-Doc services, on the other hand, describe the transmission of patient data from doctor to doctor, such as to obtain a second medical opinion.

Given the disparities in the distribution of medical practices between rural and urban regions, telemedicine offers an effective way for people in places with poor medical infrastructure to access quality medical care without having to travel long distances. In this way, the frequency of medical care can be increased, especially for people with limited mobility. The lack of a physical meeting can also be beneficial for sensitive issues and to break down barriers. Medical parameters and scientific results can also be accessed, shared with colleagues and processed accordingly, regardless of location. For companies with technical expertise, telemedicine enables new research, development and production options that can last for decades.

A distinction must be made here between developers, producers, and users. Both private-sector developers and state research institutions are only at the beginning of an extensive research era to adapt telemedicine to the growing demands of the future (demographic change, increasing world population) and make it widely accessible. Manufacturers with information and electrical engineering expertise will expand in order to meet the growing demand. Above all, users such as medical practices, clinics, pharmacies and health insurance companies will face massive changes, as they must both create the technical infrastructure and also train and recruit personnel accordingly.

The fields of application of telemedicine are fundamentally divided into the fields of telediagnostics, homecare, and highly-specialised applications. In the field of telediagnostics, the attending physician can diagnose diseases without being physically present. One form of telediagnosis is, for example, teleradiology, in which X-ray, CT or ultrasound data are sent to special centres. There, experts examine the data on a teleradiology workstation and send the diagnosis back to the attending physician, who in turn addresses the patient. Another field of application for telediagnosis is telepathology. Using state-of-the-art microscopes, digital image data are evaluated in specialised centres and then sent back to the attending physician.

Tele-homecare or telemonitoring, on the other hand, means transmitting patient data, such as sugar or blood levels, from the patient to the attending physician using digital devices. This allows medical staff to access data such as blood sugar, heart rate or oxygen saturation in real time and initiate medical measures if necessary.

The implications reach further than healthcare: fields such as air travel and shipping can also benefit from highly-specialised telemedical services. Access to medical care in the sky or on the high seas can quickly become a problem. EKG data such as heart rate, blood pressure levels or body temperature can already be sent from an aircraft or ship to a ground station, enabling remote diagnoses and medical measures.