Telemedicine: A subset of Telehealth

Many medical terms are being used nowadays that most people get confused. A common misunderstanding is that the terms telehealth, telemedicine are interchangeable. Each of these terms refers to various ways of managing health care via technology. There is a difference between these two terms.

Now let us have a close look at these.

What is Telemedicine?

Telemedicine is a significant subset of telehealth that can talk about exclusively providing health care services and education services over a distance through telecommunications technology. It involves using electronic communications to the patients and software to provide direct clinical services to the patients without a personal visit to the hospital. Telemedicine technology is generally used to manage chronic conditions, follow-up visits, medication management, specialist consultation, and many other services that can be provided remotely via video conferencing.

The terms “telehealth” and “telemedicine” both are often used interchangeably. Telemedicine refers to the usage of health information technologies and electronic communications to provide clinical services to patients remotely. Examples of telemedicine are remote medical diagnosis, digital transmission of medical imaging, evaluations, video consultations with specialists, and more. Both of these terms refer to electronic communications to assist people in becoming and staying healthy from a distance.

What is Telehealth?

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) says that telehealth is “the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to provide and promote long-distance health care, public health, patient health, health-related education, and health administration.”

Telehealth reaches across more disciplines, such as general physician and mental therapists.And It’s all about providing the best clinical services to all patients. Telehealth technology can enable the isolated diagnoses and the appraisal of patients. It enables the ability to distant detection of fluctuations. In the medical condition of the patient any time, particular medications or the exact therapy can be altered consequently. It allows for e-prescribe medications and the tenuously prescribed treatments.

Differences between Telehealth and Telemedicine

Telemedicine is one of the subsets of telehealth if we can carve out a clean piece from the telehealth pie. 

The difference between these two terms is to think that telemedicine in terms of the four ways telehealth.  Again, there are video conferencing, RPM, Store and Forward, and health, and these four delivery methods represent ALL telehealth events.

All telemedicine is under telehealth, but not all telehealth is into telemedicine. Still, both support the broader goal of expanding access to isolated clinical services. It is simplifying health management for patients and improving patient health and the efficiency of our healthcare delivery system.

Whether you call it telehealth or telemedicine, the healthcare industry is evolving by connecting patients with physicians. 

I hope this gives a complete understanding of Telemedicine and Telehealth. Use these medical services and be safe.