The coronavirus pandemic has made a regular check-up visit to the doctor not just risky but also fearful with the high chance of COVID-19 contamination. The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the transition to a new model that aims to a safe Digital consultation and harnesses the benefits of digital and data technologies.
COVID-19 pandemic crisis has become a moment for digital healthcare, telemedicine technology, and telehealth services, connecting patients to doctors through phone, text, and video.
Although telehealth services and digital healthcare have been around for a few years, recent COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have made it the most preferred form of medical consultation. Since you cannot leave your house with the ongoing lock gown and pandemic crises, telemedicine is the safest option right now to keep a tab on your follow-up appointments.
Why is Digital Healthcare important now?
Telemedicine Technology is an answer for many kinds of health care. Using telemedicine, you can measure your vitals, scan your health records and share with your doctor in a live environment, telemedicine doctor attends to you with customized advice, and with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic medical centers are even encouraging patients to consult with their doctors digitally availing telemedicine technology instead of coming in.
Coronavirus has led to an increase in digital consultations as many specialists prefer to interact with their patients over virtual visits for new consultations and regular follow up appointments. The goal of telemedicine technology is to stay in contact with patients who are at high risk with pre-existing medical conditions like hypertension, or cardiovascular disease. This puts them at high risk for COVID-19 exposure, digital healthcare helps them consult their doctors, adjust their treatment plan, and ensures that medications and refills are available as needed.
Benefits of Digital Consultation
Telehealth is for Everyone
The benefits of Telemedicine can be availed by everyone, it is a simple and straightforward digital consultation. A patient speaks with a doctor over a video call or a phone call and discusses the symptoms and follow up medications.
If you do not have a primary care physician or need urgent care, consider checking telemedicine platforms, like Gigadocs
Decreases the Infection risk
Many healthcare providers are encouraging patients to use telehealth services for a digital consultation before they head to a hospital or a clinical visit. Many patients have asymptomatic traces of the virus and don’t feel sick enough. They have an equal risk of transmission, as asymptomatic COVID-19 patient. Virtual telehealth services thus allow doctors to consult patients without the risk of infectious transmission.
Effective Patient Monitoring
Telemedicine helps in the monitoring of mild cases at home, to offering customized patient care post-hospitalization. Digital healthcare can be leveraged to ensure better management of COVID-19 contact tracing. Doctors and medical providers can assure a technologically enabled monitoring of the medical workforce, a critical resource in the current pandemic.
Telemedicine is more Versatile
Telemedicine is more suited for certain types of medical care, like general consultations, mental health care, discussing follow-up appointments, and consultation on specialist services like dermatology. For the current pandemic, clinics do not want the risk of contamination of any infectious disease like seasonal flu. Telehealth comes to rescue shielding chronically ill patients and their caretakers who sit in waiting rooms, and health-care workers.
Eases the stress of Medical professionals
Digital video visits are highly efficient, requiring few specialized health-care workers to attend them. This frees other Telehealth Medicare professionals to attend other critical patients. The use of chatbots and telemedicine technology is thus an effective means of easing the workload on clinicians.
Safe for Medical Professionals
Digital healthcare telemedicine consultation is very safe for doctors and medical health care workers too, who are the first line of defense against the COVID-19 pandemic. Senior citizen doctors and Medical professionals above 65 years are at a high risk of virus exposure and may infect their patients, thus telemedicine in health care is the need of the hour.
Verified doctor consultation
Telemedicine technology allows patients to consult verified doctors instead of self-medicating and rising complications. Moreover, with digital healthcare, location is not a constraint letting patients and their caretakers reach out to medical professionals across geographies. Telehealth services thus have a greater responsibility where platforms like Gigadocs offer telemedicine consultations on a secure platform.
How Do You Plan for a Telemedicine Doctor Consultation?
- For an effective Telemedicine, Doctor consultation follow these steps-
- Inform your healthcare provider about all your symptoms. Record your vitals including temperature, blood pressure, heart rate on the Gigadocs practice management app, and share them with your doctor in a live environment.
- Let your digital doctor know all the symptoms and medication you have taken.
- If your doctor gives you advice on some precautionary or prescriptive measures, enquire about follow up practices and the dosage of each medication.
What Questions you must ask your Digital Doctor?
- Before your digital consultation, make sure you have a list of all the questions you want to ask your digital doctor. Questions can range from any new symptoms that may worry you, or any medication you are allergic to. If you have been tracking your vital pointers like blood pressure, weight, or blood sugars at your home, share that information as well.
- Have your prescription medications by your side, discuss with your doctor any pre-existing medication if you are taking, including supplements and over the counter medicines. Inform your doctor about the dosage or any side effects of your existing medication. Discuss the requirement of refills or any changes to existing medications. Don’t miss to ask when you should follow up on medications.
- Ask about follow up visits. You can specifically ask when does your doctor wants to follow up with you, whether it will be a virtual telemedicine consultation of a physical face to face meeting? Do you have to come for any testing, and can they be scheduled on the same day as your next follow up visit
- Enquire about any special precautions you should take if you must come for an appointment, and what symptoms will need emergency care?
How to reach your Digital Doctor?
Contact your Digital doctor on the Gigadocs app, an intelligent practice management software, enabling you to manage the entire health of your family on the click of a button. To book a digital doctor, download the app on-
- IOS App – apple.co/2W2iG4V
- Andriod App – bit.ly/33AQoRC
To know more e-mail, at info@gigadocs.com
As we all worldwide face a lockdown the need for medical consultations is urgent. This will hasten the telemedicine trend to combat the novel Coronavirus.
