Telemedicine is what? Telemedicine in the health system

Telemedicine is the result of the achievements of telecommunication technologies in the field of health care. This phenomenon helps to raise the effectiveness of treatment, just like diagnostics, to a qualitatively new level. Thanks to telemedicine technologies, it is possible, for example, to provide highly qualified and timely medical assistance to remote patients. In addition, due to this method, doctors are able to determine the diagnosis based on e-mail, for example, images of X-rays or any laboratory and instrumental studies of the patient.

Given that most of the narrow specialists perform their work in specialized medical institutions in large cities, this leads to some centralization of medical care. True, the achievements of telemedicine eliminate the need for a physician's physical presence on site.

What is telemedicine?

Telemedicine is a modern approach that allows doctors to consult with their patients who are in the most remote areas and corners of the country. At the same time, in order to consult heavy patients, doctors can rely not only on their own experience. Due to telemedicine technologies, doctors and specialists have the opportunity to listen to lectures given by famous scientists on the most pressing problems in healthcare and medical science. In addition, thanks to this, it is possible to maintain professional contact with the world's leading scientific and research centers, as well as with colleagues from various district hospitals, along with leading specialists from the regional polyclinics. Extremely attractive is the possibility of using videoconferencing technologies that allow both parties to carry out live communication in video mode. Telemedicine in the healthcare system is gaining in popularity.

The need for advice from colleagues

When a doctor comes face to face with a difficult case in his practice, he usually consults and consults with colleagues. Often there is a need to communicate with doctors not only from their place of work, but with specialists from other medical institutions, both in Russia and abroad. Thus doctors exchange pictures, the medical documentation, video images and so on. Against the backdrop of the current level of development of information technologies, it became possible to exchange electronic versions of various documents, as well as communication via the Internet, just like conducting various videoconferences.

A little story about telemedicine in the healthcare system

In fact, telemedicine is not such a new phenomenon as it may seem. In fact, the very idea of ​​implementing distance medical care appeared a hundred years ago. It was at that time, right after the invention of the phone, that people attempted to transmit heart sounds in order that specialists at the other end of the wire could evaluate the patient's actual health.

After the active development of space began in the second half of the last century, the need for remote monitoring of the physiological state of astronauts appeared. It was then that the first telemetric systems began to appear, which later found their application in aviation, sports and military medicine, among other things. That is, Russian telemedicine has been around for a long time.

50th years. The first steps of

In the fifties of the last century, the Canadian doctor Utrus first passed the video image from the clinic to his home receiver. Subsequently, he developed a telemedicine system that linked two hospitals in Montreal for teleradiological diagnosis. At the same time, medical students of the Psychiatric Institute in the United States were the first to perform a remote demonstration of patients suffering from neurological diseases. But the most striking achievement of those years was the transfer of the chest X-ray from America to Canada via coaxial cable. Telemedicine technologies were already applied.

Development in the 70s

In the seventies of the last century, a huge number of telemetry systems and devices for various fields of medicine were developed. Mostly these were some experimental devices that were used in special cases.

And, finally, the most important stage in the development of telemedicine was the emergence of mobile stations, which allowed remote assistance in remote areas through satellite technology. Thanks to this project, nearly four thousand people were provided with medical assistance, which most likely would not have been received without the development of appropriate technologies.

Telemedicine tasks in the modern world

To date, such phenomenon as telemedicine in Russia pursues a number of the following tasks:

• Regular maintenance of the preventive maintenance of the population.
• The greatest possible reduction in the cost of medical services.
• Ability to service remote entities along with elimination of isolation.
• Increased quality of medical care.

Telemedicine can be called a direction that is at the junction of several areas such as telecommunications, information technology and education. For Russia this direction is quite new.

The need for medicine in information standards

Computer systems, whose activities are aimed at collecting, processing and conducting analysis of medical information today are especially relevant for all healthcare structures in our country. Along with this, such factors as orientation to solving narrow, local issues along with the lack of standard methods of storing, transferring and transforming medical information in a single information space are significant obstacles to the implementation of an effective process of informatization of public health.

As a result, contradictions arise between ever-increasing information needs and the quality of the corresponding provision of healthcare organizations.

Standardization of

At the moment it is important to recognize that standardization plays the main role for the successful introduction of telemedicine in health care. Over the last ten years, the greatest efforts of specialists who work in the field of medical informatics have focused on two main subject topics, namely the standardization of medical terminology and data transfer.

The concept of telemedicine standards

The concept of functional telemedicine standards in Russia requires the solution of the following tasks:

• The medical information system needs to include only those components that are developed by one manufacturer. This need is explained by the fact that at the moment a large number of medical equipment is equipped with computers with personal software. But such programs either can not communicate with other components, or they conduct a dialogue in their format, supporting one or another standard of data exchange. The introduction of a single standard for the exchange of information would help to eliminate problems within the information system.
• To date, there has been a completion of a period of autonomous computer systems in the medical field, which are developed by individual units in order to solve certain tasks. Now there comes another period when medical computer systems begin to interact among themselves. Information technology standards make it possible to exchange information not only within a particular system, but also in relation to external databases as well. This helps to cooperate with regional medical institutions with large centers, as well as with Russian organizations with foreign ones.

• Modern standards lead to facilitating the introduction of information technology into the medical field. Through the use of software that supports these standards, and telemedicine equipment, hospitals will be able to gradually introduce information systems, starting with any departments, ending with the gradual creation of large-scale structures.
• Software that supports modern standards, can not be outdated and can be easily upgraded and updated. As practice shows, this type of service works more stable. In addition, it is much cheaper, because the introduction of standards can cause increased competition in the software market.

Perspectives of telemedicine

For various medical organizations, the introduction of telemedicine technologies may mean a rapid reduction in the number of patient visits and their length of stay in the hospital. In addition, this leads to the possibility of providing personalized medical assistance, diagnosing diseases, and improving overall quality of care. All this, of course, can lead to a reduction in costs, which means an increase in profits.

Monitoring at home

In turn, patients can monitor their health at home and also receive highly specialized medical care, even if they are located in remote regions. In addition, telemedicine makes it possible to control the intake of medicines, which also significantly improves the quality of life of patients.

Continuous improvement of

Continuous development of all new technologies, for example, the Internet and 5G, make an additional contribution to the endless improvement of the telemedicine system, as well as mobile solutions for the healthcare system. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the number of companies engaged in the development of various mobile solutions in the healthcare sphere is already growing. These include various devices designed for fitness and healthy lifestyle support, as well as all kinds of devices that are used for outpatient research, for example, tonometers, electrocardiographs, glucometers along with solutions for remote transmission of medical information.

The development of telemedicine

Despite the urgency and convenience, as well as the incredible progress of computer technology in the modern world, there are a number of problems in the functioning of telemedicine, which must certainly find a solution. So, we are talking about the following:

• There are problems in ensuring standardization and compatibility of computer devices along with technologies that are applied in the field of telemedicine.
• There is a lack of development of the regulatory framework, just like the absence of international standards, which results in a large number of poor-quality and unreliable decisions.
• The lack of patients' readiness to apply a new type of medical care, which is somewhat related to the previous problems.
• Some difficulties with the protection and confidentiality of data.
• Another problem is that telemedicine services today are not fully covered by insurance.

All of the above difficulties significantly hamper the further development of the telemedicine market, and therefore require an early solution.

In conclusion

Thus, today the subject of telemedicine in the Russian Federation is the transfer of medical information between distant points from which doctors, patients, or other providers of care are located. When it comes to telemedicine, it should be understood that the use and application of telecommunications is intended to connect specialists with hospitals, clinics, other physicians who provide primary care to various patients who are at that time at a certain distance. A similar contact is made for the diagnosis, counseling or treatment, as well as continuing education in the healthcare field.

We considered that this is telemedicine.