Telehealth and Telemedicine: The Notable Difference

Telehealth is defined by the Department of Health and Human Services as the utilization of telecommunication technologies and electronic information to provide and promote clinical healthcare from a long distance. Using smartphones, wearable devices and wireless telecommunications, healthcare facilities provide access to quality healthcare without being restricted by geographical barriers.

Telehealth provides access to professional health-related education and information, public health and health administration. The primary reason to use telehealth software is to provide both clinical and non-clinical services. Telehealth is delivered in the following ways:

Videoconferencing:

Telehealth uses a stable and fast internet connection to provide a quick and seamless interaction with healthcare providers so that the patient’s symptoms can be triaged and treated without much delay. Live videoconferencing and real-time consultation helps patients to connect with their healthcare providers to get more information about the treatment and communicate about the medications without causing much delay.

Remote patient monitoring:

Medical and health data such as blood-oxygen level, blood pressure readings, and glucose levels can be transmitted on a predetermined schedule or as needed to the healthcare providers using conventional measurement devices such as digital stethoscopes, vital sign monitoring devices, wearable devices such as heart rate monitors etc.

Document and transfer:

Telehealth software platforms are integrated with electronic health records to efficiently and without compromise record, track and document patients’ health. These electronic health records house information about the patients’ health and the prescribed diagnoses for the patients’ so that healthcare providers do not have to start from the beginning again. These electronic health records also allow healthcare providers to quickly and without delay transfer to specialists so that they can efficiently triage and treat the patients.

Mobile Health:

Healthcare practice and public healthcare education can be provided using smartphones, tablet and mobile appliances which can access the mobile telehealth solutions services without compromise.  Applications can range from specific text messages that encourage and promote good health to wide-scale alerts about any particular disease outbreaks affecting the area or city.

Telemedicine can be understood easily because it only relates to the delivery of clinical healthcare. Telemedicine can be defined as the process of delivering quality healthcare from a distance using telecommunication technologies. The primary advantage of telemedicine is to help healthcare providers offer medical care and services using telecommunications to patients who reside in remote locations or they cannot arrange for transportation to travel to medical health centres.

Telehealth application offerings in USA and White label telemedicine app solutions from companies such as SISGAIN have made it possible to deliver quality healthcare with convenience and seamless, uninterrupted technology. SISGAIN promises to deliver high quality, robust and dynamic software that are enriched in technology and adds value to the entire industry. SISGAIN’s mission is to provide dynamic, robust and superior technology to clients using innovative and cost-efficient ideas to deliver absolute customer satisfaction. Top quality developers aim to revolutionize the industry by facilitating innovation and change and provide excellent services.

Telemedicine is the subset of telehealth that exclusively deals with the provision of healthcare services and public healthcare education from a distance using telecommunication technologies. Telemedicine solutions provide access to quality healthcare and clinical services to patients using virtual communication software. Telemedicine technologies are used for healthcare services such as regular check-ups, follow-up virtual visits, management of medications and consultations with specialists. Clinical and all healthcare services using live video conferencing and tele-consultations are provided by healthcare providers using telemedicine.

Telehealth and telemedicine might be interchanged frequently to mean the virtual system of healthcare delivery but it does not mean that all of telehealth is telemedicine. Telehealth and telemedicine, both are a part of the larger effort to provide access to quality healthcare and increase the efficiency of the healthcare system.