Enabling Tech for Telemedicine – #HITsm Chat Topic

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 5/8 at Noon ET (9 AM PT). This week’s chat will be hosted by Irma Rastegayeva (@IrmaRaste) and Evan Kirstel (@evankirstel) on the topic of “Enabling Tech for Telemedicine“.

With the Coronavirus Pandemic intensifying around the world, Telemedicine is experiencing a surge in popularity and use. But its “overnight success” during COVID-19 is only possible because of the work that has been done in the last decade or so, and also because of the availability of the many enabling technologies that make it possible.

The benefits of Telemedicine were numerous even before the Coronavirus Pandemic made this technology vital. For years, the driving factors for Telehealth adoption by patients included time and cost savings, stigma for certain specialties (like mental health), physical immobility, or lack of qualified providers in the area. With cases of COVID-19 in the US quickly rising to surpass one million, and most of the country under stay-at-home orders, Telemedicine is quickly becoming an essential service that allows healthcare to be safe for both medical providers and patients.

Before the coronavirus, more than 75% of medical resources were used to treat patients with chronic health conditions, the majority of them being the elderly. These are the exact populations that are at higher risk of serious, even deadly, complications from COVID-19. For the elderly and patients with chronic conditions, telemedicine combined with technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearables and voice-activated services, powered by 5G, allows for remote patient monitoring and inclusion of patient’s family and caregivers in communications with the doctor and in treatment decisions.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a healthcare-specific subset of the Internet of Things (IoT). This massive network is poised to include billions of low-bit rate and low-energy connected health monitoring devices, remote sensors, and clinical wearables, with 5G providing a backbone infrastructure for IoT. Doctors already rely on these devices to collect and electronically transmit their patients’ data. The data is received in real time, allowing healthcare providers to efficiently analyse it, derive insights, and administer or adjust treatments. On the diagnostics and prevention side, this data will also allow doctors to increase the accuracy of their diagnoses and therefore effectiveness of treatments.

The COVID-19 / Coronavirus Pandemic will have a significant positive and lasting impact on Telehealth market expansion.

The annual global IoT revenue in healthcare is expected to surpass $27 Billion by the year 2025. And IHS Markit predicts that 5G will enable more than $1 Trillion in products and services for the global health care sector. The global Telemedicine market size was valued at $45 Billion in 2019 and is expected to grow 19.3% from 2020 to 2026 to reach $175 Billion by 2026 (Global Market Insights, April 2020). North America is expected to maintain the largest share of the global market.

Join us for this week’s #HITsm chat where we’ll be discussing the enabling technologies for telemedicine.

Topics for this week’s #HITsm Chat:

T1: What are the most important technologies to enable Telemedicine? #HITsm

T2: What is the role/responsibility of the public and private sectors in enabling Telehealth and increasing its adoption? #HITsm

T3: How do IoT, AI and cloud technologies enable a complete remote health care experience? #HITsm

T4: How is #5G transforming healthcare beyond “just” Telemedicine? #HITsm

T5: How can Telemedicine help First Responders to improve triage and deliver better care? #HITsm

BONUS: Is there a role for AR and VR in Telemedicine? #HITsm

Upcoming #HITsm Chat Schedule
5/15 – Remote Patient Registration
Hosted by Theresa Moss (@theresajmoss) from @FormFast

5/22 – The Role of Specialty Specific Telehealth
Hosted by TBD

5/29 – Remote Patient Monitoring
Hosted by Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia) and Ashley Dauwer (@amariedauwer) from @CariumCares

6/5 – Ambulatory Telehealth Nuances
Hosted by Amanda Hansen (@AmandaSHansen) from @AdvancedMD

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always, let us know if you’d like to host a future #HITsm chat or if you know someone you think we should invite to host.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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