Digital health: is telemedicine the future?
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A series of projects in different parts of the world has shown the enormous potential that the current digital revolution has in the field of health
Universal health coverage, one of the main requirements of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, is an extremely ambitious aspiration that is hampered by the difficulty in accessing medical care in low and middle income countries.
Leer en español: Salud digital: ¿es la telemedicina el futuro?
However, a series of projects in different parts of the world has shown the enormous potential that the current digital revolution has in the field of health.
World-class examples
According to El Tiempo reports, Ghana and Colombia have become world-class examples by revolutionizing the connection of patients with modern medicine using technology.
In 2011, the Health Service of Ghana and Novartis initiated the first pilot telemedicine program in the country with the aim of creating an extensible model at the national level. Although at first it only included 30 local communities, this program managed to get 70% of the medical consultations managed by telephone, saving patients tedious transfers to primary care centers, according to El País.
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In Antioquia, Colombia, the Ministry of Health in Medellin, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Antioquia, the CES University, the Red Cross, the Pontifical Bolivarian University and Ubiquo Telemedicina developed a project that uses elements of telemedicine, home telecare, telecare prehospital and teleeducation and allows connecting 123 municipalities to hospitals of the third level of complexity, decreasing diagnostic and care times by means of.
What is the importance of digital health and what is its scope?
On the one hand, according to La Razón, thanks to remote teleconsultations, the monitoring by means of devices of health parameters, the reduction of time when preparing tests and obtaining results and the reduction of mobility at various times of the treatment, these technological advances represent a reduction of significant costs in the future of personalized medicine.
In addition, digital health also opens a new infinite panorama of possibilities that includes personalized products adapted to the needs of users: for example, there are already health modules operated by artificial intelligence with which users can easily control parameters such as blood pressure, blood sugar, hydration and muscle mass by means of full body scans autonomously.
Finally, another of the great scope of health integration with digital tools is the optimization of the digitalization of the processes and internal operations of medical centers, allowing patients to have a diagnosis in a much shorter period of time and increasing the data security.
LatinAmerican Post | Luisa Báez
Translated from "Salud digital: ¿es la medicina del futuro?"
