Currently, COVID-19 disease is undoubtedly the greatest challenge facing humanity. Although estimates indicate that up to 70% of the world’s population will be infected with this virus, strict social distancing measures remain the only option to avoid the saturation and collapse of medical services around the world. Distance is the resource that, until today, guarantees us to be able to defeat this pandemic.
At this time, health centers, clinics, and hospitals allocate all of their resources, both human and material, to care for patients infected with Covid-19. However, the rest of the diseases do not stop and patients with diabetes, hypertension, infectious diseases, pregnant women, etc., also demand attention from health specialists. This means that all these patients require medical attention that can solve their problems without the risk of exposing them to potential contagion.
This is where telemedicine comes into play. By definition, this practice is characterized by remote medical care and is currently the safest option to approach a healthcare professional.
Speaking a bit of its history, the term telemedicine was first introduced in 1970. However, this practice had its beginnings from the invention of the telegraph, when, through its use, patients described their symptoms in order to seek advice. doctor. Currently, specialties such as dermatology, radiology, and pathology use remote digital tools to integrate medical diagnoses without the need to be present physically with the patient.
Unfortunately, telemedicine has met its main detractors within the same guild. Classical or more conservative doctors maintain that telemedicine is a practice with many limitations and its exercise lacks, in most cases, solid evidence to support its validity.
This opinion is based on the fact that medicine, being the most humane of sciences, must include direct contact with the patient. And this is an undeniable truth. How can we identify a problem that requires surgery in the abdomen without even touching it? How can we know when a bone is fractured without assessing its functionality? How can we convey the feeling of security to the patient without being able to shake his hand? The answer is not simple and is based on the fact that telemedicine depends on the ability of the clinician to guide the patient in such a way that together they arrive at a diagnosis.
The coronavirus changes the equation
However, given the current health crisis, telemedicine becomes a great health care strategy. And this is because the more queries can be resolved from home, there will be less saturation of hospital services and, therefore, a reduction in the spread of the virus.
And already, there are many telemedicine online services available. QuickRxRefill is among the top leaders in the list when it comes to prescription medication refills, so patients don’t have to visit doctors physically, they can just open their website: https://www.quickrxrefill.com/ and consult with US doctors regarding their issues.
Among the most frequent consultations are elderly people with mobility problems, people with chronic diseases that require timely monitoring, children with infectious symptoms, pregnant women with prenatal check-ups, among many others.
All of them belong to the risk groups to present complications if they are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. With the use of telemedicine, they will be able to be sure of being cared for from home and with the certainty that there is an expert on the other side of the camera who is available, hears him when he requires it, and gives him confidence with attentive monitoring of his condition health.
In addition, telemedicine in times of the coronavirus plays an extremely important role, triage; That is, those patients who present symptoms suggestive of the disease can be assessed and classified using medical scales in order to guide those who must go to a hospital urgently and thus have better control and management to prevent the infection to spread.
A tool for the future
In short, telemedicine is a fundamental tool in this age of distancing. Although various ailments will always require a face-to-face assessment, after the pandemic many doctors will opt for remote medicine to monitor patients, rapid consultations, interpretation of results, and so on.
Over time and as technology advances and offers us more tools to work with this modality, specialization courses focused on perfecting this practice should be created in parallel, as well as standardized care protocols that guarantee that anyone in the world has access to these services. If a person needs a doctor, they can do it confidently and safely without leaving home.
