Have you ever imagined seeing a doctor at your home? It can make you really comfortable and relaxed. There is a system like that which is called telemedicine. It uses telecommunication and technology of information to provide clinical health care from a distance. It can be used when patients need continuous service. Also, it can be used in critical care and emergency situation to save a life. Telemedicine has various forms, such as emergency care, telenutrition, telenursing, and teletrauma care.

▲ Telemedicine

There are some advantages of telemedicine. It can remove the barrier of distance and provide easy accessibility to medical service. Patients who like in remote places do not need to go to the hospitals, and they can pay less medical expenses. Also, it can do remote prescription verification and medication administration. It will provide preventative, promotive, and curative care delivery. Furthermore, it can share the best practice easily which has effects of medical education.

▲ Remote prescription verification

However, telemedicine also has some disadvantages. It requires a strong and reliable broadband connection. Patients should believe the doctors, so it can cause anxiety. Also, it will decrease human interaction and cause more danger. When we use this system, doctors need more time to treat patients. Moreover, the quality of patient care information will decrease, and doctors cannot do immediate treatments.

Although there are some disadvantages of telemedicine, it can enhance the diversity of medical services and provide another value to patients. Also, it can be a great innovation in the future. So, many countries are using this system already. However, in South Korea, this system is banned because medical accessibility is high, so necessity is not highlighted. Moreover, the medical delivery system has to be improved first. Therefore, we need to discuss this system and make a better environment of medical care.

▲ Medical service

2019.Nov.9th

By Jin Hyun Hui