Telemedicin –
endless possibilities?

Telemedicine (and medicine in general)... is something that has been highly in discussion in the last months.
Especially since there have been several congresses for telemedicine in the last time.

But first: what even is telemedicine?
By definition¹ it is the usage of means of telecommunications for medical purposes. For example diagnostics.

Wikipedia² says it is sub-area of telematics in the health service an describes diagnosis and therapy by bridging a spatial or temporal distance between the doctor (telemedicine), therapist (teletherapist), pharmacist and patient or between two consulting physicians by means of telecommunication.

I think the definition captures it well and understandable.

So let's weigh out the pros and cons:

The pros:
- Telemedicine could bring improved accessibility and nationwide coverage to rural areas³. This could be even thought out bigger and improves medic coverage all over the world where sometimes one doctor, statistically speaking, has to cover thousands of people.

- It could massively save time since the time spent driving to the doctors' office wouldn't be a thing and you wouldn't have to sit in the doctors' office and wait hours for your appointment³.

- Special treatments (e.g. a speech therapy after a stroke) need to be done daily to be really effective⁴. Now you could drive to your doctor and wait in his office etc. or you could just sit at home in front of your laptop and do the therapy there.

and many more.

The Cons:
- If the voice/sound or images of something are relevant for the treatment/diagnosis, there can be challenges since almost every data transferred online is compressed which results in a loss of quality³.

- Another challenge are the strict data regulation laws⁵ (especially here in Germany). These have been preventing a real progress in this matter for a long time.

- It could probably be quite a challenge to introduce all the features³, and this is something difficult for both sides. For some patients, for example, it's just another Skype Call but for some again it's like something entirely new. Same for the doctors and their personal as well.

A personal case:
A year or something ago I was struggling with an ugly case of scalp flakes, I called several skin doctors to see if they could have a look and give me an appointment...

What I expected: Them saying something like "Yeah sure checking that out probably won't take long, why don't you come by the day after tomorrow for example?"

Reality: "Nah sorry, we're completely full for the next 5 months. Call another doctor, bye."

What could've happened if telemedicine was a thing: "Yeah sure, just take a picture with a high quality where we could exactly see the problem and maybe describe what water you use, etc." or something like that...

Luckily my skin got better by itself with the time and a new shampoo but I sure was very disappointed by the healthcare system.

My conclusion:
Telemedicine won't solve all problems and it sure isn't a replacement... But it is a great addition and would make a lot of things much easier.