Telemedicine has become a buzzword in recent years. It refers to the provision of care that allows practitioners of medicine to diagnose, evaluate, and treat their patients without having to meet them. According to the National Library of Medicine, telemedicine is “the delivery of medical care and provision of general health services from a distance.”
Understanding Telemedicine Trends
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a sea change in how patients interact with their primary healthcare providers. It produced a massive shift in favor of telemedicine and telehealth. It changed how people would receive care and their interaction with telemedicine providers, calling for the latter to be smart in fulfilling patient needs.
We can safely say that hybrid health care is here to stay. The telehealth and telemedicine industries are growing in leaps and bounds, with ever-increasing funding being provided to make this technology viable for patients and healthcare providers. A CBS report estimates the digital healthcare funding to be $26.5 billion in 2020, its highest mark in recent years.
Telemedicine is growing rapidly with the help of new technological advances. The use of new technologies like IoT and AI has changed how people seek treatment and how it is provided to them. Telemedicine does away with the need to travel large distances to seek treatment. Today patients look for medical providers with the technical expertise to meet their individual medical needs from a distance.
Telemedicine Trends of 2023
In this context, the dominant telemedicine trends in the market need to be known to predict where we are going with this healthcare concept. This year, in 2022, there was a lot of emphasis on telemedicine, which will continue into the following year, 2023. Take a look at the various developments and trends in this industry for the coming year.
EHR Embedded Telecare
Nowadays, almost all clinics, physicians, and hospitals use electronic health records, also known as EHR. In medicine, the EHR is tantamount to safe patient file storage and seamless interoperability.
Telehealth and telemedicine solutions have state-of-the-art EHR integration options. With the help of integrated EHR, a clinic can transfer all patient records alongside other practices.
It is much easier to keep updating the patient’s data through the EHR system. It lets clinicians improve the standard of care delivery with the help of reports, timely prescriptions, and medication refills for the patient.
The Approach of Digital First
We can safely call the 21st century the age of digitalization. Traditionally, the healthcare sector has always been slow to pick up and implement new technology. However, that is set to change with telemedicine.
With telemedicine, healthcare providers are changing their outlook to adopt new, state-of-the-art digital solutions. It is evident in the use of audio calling and video conferencing to reach out to patients in the comfort of their homes.
Delivery of care has shifted its focus to digital mediums like scheduling appointments, report delivery, and exchange of medical files between different health specialists for the same patient. Digitalization in healthcare is here to stay in 2023 and beyond.
mHealth
In telemedicine, mHealth is a technology swiftly coming up the ranks and is expected to boom in 2023. mHealth keeps track of the patient's vitals, sends medication reminders, and manages the patient's files along with other associated services. Integrating mHealth in telemedicine helps foster the patient-doctor relationship and leads to more positive health outcomes.
People, and patients, in particular, are adopting mHealth in increasing numbers. For this, you have mobile phone applications to thank. Along with activity trackers and technology for health information, mHealth is a mobile technology that, with proper leverage, will improve patient outcomes significantly in 2023.
A recent study pegged the global mHealth market at $56 billion in 2020. This market will keep growing at a CAGR of over 30% from 2021 to 2030.
5G Technology
The 5G technology is already creating waves in the places it has launched. It is bound to increase data consumption with unmatched internet surfing and streaming speeds. From this angle, applying 5G to telemedicine in 2023 will lead to a faster connection, a better quality of video streaming, less lag during consultation video calls, and faster file transfer rates.
5G will empower patients with a speed of 20 Mbps or more, leading to increased accuracy of data recordings. A patient will encounter fewer disruptions and disconnections during online consultations with doctors and health providers. It will boost overall satisfaction rates among patients. How this 5G windfall will be leveraged remains to be seen in 2023.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It is impossible not to discuss AI when discussing telemedicine trends in 2023. AI technology has swept aside everything in its path to becoming one of the most exciting and rewarding technologies, especially in telemedicine.
AI can be seen everywhere in telemedicine. From chatbots guiding the patient to providing high-quality analytics for the doctor to peruse, AI is rapidly changing the way we look at telemedicine. Besides having multiple applications in telemedicine, AI also improves the quality of gathered data and can provide actionable insight to healthcare-providing organizations to polish business strategies.
Internet of Things (IoT)
It is a new technology that influences other future technologies to be more efficient on their own. Medical IoT comprises instruments like activity trackers and smartwatches. These machines have sensors and other technologies that assist in exchanging data between different electronic systems.
The healthcare IoT market is expected to reach $446.52 billion by 2028. It is up from $89.07 billion in 2021. So it is evident how important this will be in healthcare in 2023 and onward. IoT is especially useful in monitoring remote patients, where clinicians can remotely record the different vitals of the patient, like heart rate and blood glucose levels. Clinicians also use IoT to alert patients about medication and other associated activities.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented reality is a promising field in telemedicine. It is increasingly used in surgeries, rehabilitation, training, and teaching. AR is also useful for training new surgeons by simulating real-life surgeries.
Some emerging applications of augmented reality include invasive surgeries and distance teaching. With AR, patients can be coaxed into some tasks better than in 3D.
Cloud Computing
A revolutionary change in healthcare happened with cloud computing. Now there is no need to make files and store necessary patient data on in-house servers. In place of this, vendor-hosted servers can be utilized, which reduces the maintenance load on internal IT staff.
In 2023, there will be added emphasis on the cloud computing system, which will provide instant deployment attributes to the telemedicine sector.
Conclusion
The trends in telemedicine will continue to grow at a rapid pace in 2023. Different game-changing technologies like AI, AR, VR, and IoT will make significant progress next year, leading to a flourishing telemedicine practice with apparent advantages and merits. Besides, there has been a spurt in investments in this sector, which bodes well for telemedicine in the long run.