Table of Contents
Key Highlights
- Telehealth is a broad term for digital communications and information technology to access healthcare information and manage care.
- Telemedicine is a specific term used to describe the use of digital communications and information technology to diagnose and treat patients by offering remote clinical medical services.
- Expanding telehealth and telemedicine is transforming clinical medical and healthcare operations management.
- Asahi Technologies delivers virtual care service solutions for healthcare and medical enterprises looking to expand telehealth and telemedicine services.
Difference Between Telehealth and Telemedicine
Are you curious about the difference between telehealth and telemedicine? Let’s break it down for you.
Telehealth: is a broad term for digital communications and information technology to access healthcare information and manage care. A telehealth solution may involve a community hospital system’s physician-facing web application and corresponding healthcare mobile app that patients use to connect with the service.
Telemedicine: A specific term used to describe the use of digital communications and information technology to diagnose and treat patients by offering remote clinical medical services. A telemedicine solution may involve web portals to provide patients access to remote clinical outpatient mental health services.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth and telemedicine services usage skyrocketed as patients and providers saw clear benefits in the expanded access this new care delivery offered. Though it’s easy to think of telehealth vs. telemedicine, these concepts support each other and represent the expansion of clinical medicine and healthcare operations management.
Many healthcare organizations are embracing digital acceleration and a “virtual-first” initiative toward leveraging insights gained during the pandemic into measurable value for patients, physicians, and payers. Telehealth services such as patient portals, information platforms, and digital health applications provide a vital touch point linking patients with their community health networks.
Telehealth expands the digital front door and creates a more cohesive end-to-end digital health ecosystem that provides access to patients and other stakeholders connected to the community health system. Telemedicine brings medical resources and expertise to patients while delivering physicians potent new methods for supporting preventative medicine and swifter interventions to head off chronic disease.
The expansion of telemedicine accelerates daily as more communities connect to broadband wireless communications technologies and adopt the rural community health hub and spoke approach. Digital services allow rural patient consumers to access suburban and urban providers more easily using computers, video, and messaging software.
The Key Differences Between Telehealth vs Telemedicine
Instead of considering telehealth vs. telemedicine as a type of competition, consider them complementary elements of delivering clinical medical and healthcare operations services.
Telehealth: Solutions to Expand Digital Health Services
The main types of telehealth are healthcare administration, scheduling and communications, and remote care management.
Healthcare admin is a blanket term that describes how doctors and patients use telehealth software to compete in expanding remote healthcare management services.
Scheduling and communicating with professionals using communications technology are core functions of this software.
Finally, remote care management refers to the ability of these solutions to provide access to processes and workflows that change how these end-user groups manage healthcare remotely.
Here are some relevant telehealth use cases:
- Linking patients and providers to deliver new ways to manage core healthcare services, access community health resources, and support better information flows.
- Delivering healthcare administrators new ways to engage patients in managing their care using digital technologies.
- Creating new opportunities to connect with community health resources using mobile devices, web applications, and digital health apps.
Telemedicine: Solutions to Enhance Remote Clinical Practices
The main types of telemedicine are interactive medicine, remote patient monitoring, and storing and forwarding patient health information (PHI).
Interactive medicine is the new landscape of “distance-based healing,” which allows doctors to communicate with patients in real time and use medical device hardware and other sensing technologies to capture diagnostic insights while maintaining HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance.
Storing and forwarding PHI refers to the need for telemedicine providers to share sensitive personal health information. As telemedicine expands, it is essential to exchange patient data and biological material securely.
Remote patient monitoring services are another critical component of telemedicine that guides the usage of data collection services using medical devices.
Here are some relevant telemedicine use cases:
- They link patients and providers to support clinical diagnosis, medical care planning, prescribing medications, and delivering life-saving interventions to remote and underserved populations.
- Providing new workflows for medical teams to stay up to date with their patients while creating new organizational processes leveraging automation to reduce manual processes.
- They offer patients the ability to manage their medical care remotely using the latest digital technologies.
Examples of Telehealth and Telemedicine
Telehealth, telemedicine, and virtual care services are expanding rapidly.
Here are some examples of custom healthcare technology solutions delivering these services:
- Digital Healthcare Applications: Hospitals, clinics, specialists, and physicians are using telehealth and telemedicine software to build out their digital health ecosystems to expand patient access to vital services.
- Patient Engagement Tools: Many providers are releasing digital applications to make it more fun, easy, and enjoyable for patients to learn about their health, track their care, and leverage tools to reach better results.
- Third-Party Solutions: Many third-party clients of healthcare and medical service providers, such as pharmacies, assisted living facilities, and veterinarians, can benefit from telehealth and telemedicine functions to expand their services using safe and proven frameworks.
How Can Asahi Technologies Help You with Developing Telemedicine and Telehealth Applications?
Asahi Technologies is a technology solutions provider with deep domain expertise delivering custom digital health products to healthcare enterprises.
We deliver the expertise, insight, and guidance our clients need to harness the full potential of trending capabilities like telehealth and telemedicine so our clients can enhance their reputations and competitive advantage.
If you are ready to deliver tomorrow’s next-generation digital health services, get in touch.
Stay ahead of the game with our helpful resources
How Hospital Information Systems Improve Efficiency & Cost
Hospital information systems (HIS) connect the different clinical departments, administrative functions, core workflows, data, and best practices driving digital success at forward looking healthcare enterprises. The implementation of hospital information systems delivers measurable benefits to improve patient care, healthcare operations efficiencies, reduce costs, promote data security, streamline communication, and fuel more effective data-driven decision-making. Build a custom HIS solution to invigorate your organization’s digital acceleration.
How Remote Patient Monitoring can Improve Healthcare Access
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is the use of medical devices, healthcare practice management software, hardware integrations, and new categories such as wearables and smart homes hooked into the medical internet of things (MIOT). RPM builds quicker feedback loops between patients and providers, reducing the need for time-consuming and expensive emergency services. As remote patient monitoring tool usage increases, the cost of care drops, and patients receive more efficient and timely medical services.
How patient portals can improve communication in Healthcare
Key Highlights Patient portals for healthcare improve communication to create a more potent therapeutic alliance between patients and their community health resources. Streamline clinical workflows, contain costs, and unlock enterprise value by delivering custom patient portals. Empower more efficient and effective communication between different stakeholders connected to the community health matrix with patient engagement tools. Health is wealth, and time may be the most valuable commodity. No one wants to waste time or be left waiting when health is in jeopardy. That’s where digital patient portals come in. In recent years, few pieces of the digital health ecosystem have transformed
Features and Benefits of Hospital Management Software
Hospital management software handles all the different aspects of managing services at a hospital. A modern HMS system is at the forefront of efforts to identify areas of improvement, measure the success of interventions, and deliver the insights needed to truly innovate and optimize performance. The right hospital management software tools provide your executive decision makers with the business intelligence needed to unlock new business opportunities and profitability while simultaneously trimming the fat and reducing wastage at every step in your value chain.
Sindhu
Client Success Manager
Sindhu is a tenacious and impassioned digital product and project manager specializing in driving client success across complex healthcare technology implementations and integrations. She is a certified Agile Scrum Master and holds advanced degrees in computer science and software engineering. Her philosophy is that “work is where the heart is” and believes the key to success is creating a solid, supportive, and cohesive team.
