What Is Telehealth Technology?
Telehealth is the remote delivery of vital healthcare services, from virtual consultations and wearable diagnostic devices to surgeries performed via robotic arms.
Overall, telehealth helps manage chronic conditions and improves access to care. Modern innovations in telehealth technology help providers work more efficiently, integrate AI to predict and improve outcomes, keep patients connected with wearables and other tools for remote patient monitoring, and employ robotics to bring specialty care to places it has never been. Telehealth also allows healthcare providers to care for an increased volume of patients.
While many providers were introduced to telehealth through simple videoconferencing, emerging telemedicine technologies have much more to offer. For example, clinicians can use natural language processing to take notes during a remote visit automatically. Specialists can weigh in from afar during emergency procedures. Wearable technologies can transmit and analyze data through 5G connectivity and cloud resources to keep physicians aware of their patients’ conditions. The result is enhanced and convenient care, no matter where the providers or patients are.
Telehealth vs. Telemedicine
Telehealth and telemedicine are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings. Telemedicine specifically refers to remote clinical services, such as consultations and diagnostics, allowing healthcare providers to deliver care without in-person visits.
In contrast, telehealth encompasses a broader range of nonclinical services, including health education, remote monitoring, and administrative tasks, all of which aim to enhance overall patient engagement and care management.
How Telehealth Technology Works
Overall, telehealth works by connecting patients, providers, and hospital administrators through a variety of technologies.
One of the most common is videoconferencing between patients and providers, also known as teleconsultation. This can greatly simplify access to care. To enable teleconsultation, healthcare organizations are investing in workstations, medical carts, kiosks, and tablets with strong audio/visual capabilities.
As technology evolves, emerging innovations are creating new telehealth possibilities. Patients can use wearables and other medical devices at home to check their blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate, then transmit results for analysis to their doctor. These integrated wearables track patient vitals throughout the day and transmit data to the cloud for easy, ongoing evaluation—both by the patients themselves and by care providers.
Remote monitoring enhances a patient’s experience by increasing their comfort and access to care while reserving hospital beds and other on-site resources for those with urgent medical needs. When patients feel unwell or have questions, they can schedule a telemedicine appointment, and a provider can access the ongoing readings to give advice. Providers can input patient notes, write prescriptions, and add other data that pharmacists and specialists can readily access at their locations.
Self-service kiosks in a variety of locations—in a clinical setting, at a pharmacy, or in a public place—offer another way for patients to connect with providers. Kiosks can also let patients book appointments and pay bills.
Telehealth even extends to emergency responders, who can use telemedicine devices to take EEG, EKG, and other readings and send them to hospital staff while en route. Specialists can advise on immediate treatment, and staff can better prepare for the patient’s arrival. The ability to respond immediately to emergencies can be lifesaving, particularly in the case of a heart attack or stroke.
From a technology perspective, telehealth is enabled by a number of supporting solutions, including:
- Computing resources powering servers, workstations, tablets, medical equipment, cloud environments, and robotics.
- Networking technologies such as Wi-Fi and 5G that connect patients, providers, and devices like wearable sensors.
- Audio-visual devices such as webcams, microphones, and displays that help facilitate remote interaction.
- AI models, built specifically for telehealth applications, that help improve outcomes and streamline processes.
- Software, including tools such as videoconferencing applications, point-of-care systems, electronic health record systems, remote diagnostics systems, and online patient portals.
- Robotics technologies, enabled by AI and software, that can perform or facilitate remote procedures.
Benefits of Telehealth Technology
Telehealth technology improves the patient experience and patient outcomes, increases collaboration among providers and specialists, and enables healthcare organizations to provide quality care to more people and communities.
Better Access to Healthcare
Telemedicine provides greater reach to rural and underserved communities, making it more convenient for people in those communities to make and keep appointments. People with limited mobility or those who cannot drive can more easily get the care they need. Rural health centers can connect patients to in-demand specialists, such as neurologists.
Delivering timely patient care in the optimum venue benefits the entire hospital ecosystem by accelerating patient treatments and recovery while maximizing valuable hospital assets.
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
Telemedicine technology enables frequent patient monitoring and data collection. Patients can transmit biometric data from wearables or remote monitoring devices, allowing providers to see their statuses in near-real time. Providers can also monitor patients at home after a hospital stay or when they are recovering from an injury. The next generation of AI capabilities will make it possible to integrate even more health data into these systems, helping detect patterns pointing to potential issues.
Telehomecare
Enabling many types of healthcare appointments to be conducted without the patient leaving their home—an approach also called home health—creates a safe environment for patients and providers. For example, patients sick with the flu or a cold can speak with their doctor without bringing germs into the office. Immunocompromised patients can conduct routine checkups without traveling. Providers are better protected against infectious diseases while they deliver guidance and monitor patient progress.
Cost Efficiencies of Telehealth Technology
Using telemedicine technology, providers may be able to serve more patients. Exam rooms don’t have to be cleaned between appointments, visits can be shorter, and clinics can be smaller.
Access to teleurgent care can reduce emergency department visits. Integration with electronic health records (EHRs) enables providers to quickly compare test results, review patient history, and make thorough assessments without flipping through paper records. Travel costs for in-demand healthcare specialists and patients can also be reduced.
Point of Care (POC)
Integration with POC software—such as seamless videoconferencing via purpose-built telehealth carts—allows medical practitioners to seamlessly introduce telehealth into their workflow, including easy access to testing results as they consult with patients and make medical decisions.
Artificial Intelligence in Telehealth Technology
AI is also bringing new capabilities to telehealth and telemedicine. For example, AI can provide prompts that make it easier to obtain a patient’s medical history during a telemedicine visit, dynamically adjusting questions based on responses.1 Other AI-based tools can offer personalized reminders for medication and recommend routine condition checks based on personal monitoring data.1
AI in telehealth also helps enable the near-real-time analysis of patient data to detect key signifiers or early warning signs while empowering care providers to make optimal decisions for their patients. This includes incorporating information from wearable remote testing and diagnostic devices.
AI can also predict patient outcomes, illuminate areas of risk, and anticipate the need for interventions to help better optimize resource utilization. AI-enhanced telehealth solutions in an emergency room or ICU context can help staff remotely monitor and manage patients in critical condition, even when they’re spread out over several physical locations. Across teleoncology, telestroke, and other specialized forms of telehealth, AI can help detect early warning signs, identify patterns, predict future events, enhance the accuracy of diagnoses, and improve patient experiences.
Additionally, in areas where multidisciplinary consultations are needed, telehealth can help facilitate the necessary collaboration while reducing the need for travel for all parties involved.
Privacy and Security in Telehealth Technology
Before providers can unlock the full benefits of AI-enabled telemedicine technology, they must have a secure platform for sharing personal health information (PHI). Data security is top of mind in healthcare environments, where HIPAA and other privacy regulations demand that sensitive PHI be protected. Healthcare organizations are a major target for cyberattacks because their networks contain so much valuable data.
This calls for an end-to-end approach that includes strong network security features and controlled access rights management. Data protection technologies such as encryption can help protect patient information transmitted over telemedicine devices and other endpoints. A HIPAA-compliant telehealth strategy might involve keeping data on an edge server that is closer to where data is collected and analyzed as well as sending it to the cloud.
Telehealth Technology Use Cases
New ways to use technology to connect patients and providers are emerging constantly. Today, much telehealth usage is centered around remote visitation, consultation, and remote monitoring applications. Peer-to-peer consultations between providers are also considered a telehealth use case.
Additionally, technologies like personal health records, online patient portals, and personal health apps can be considered examples of telehealth technology. Self-service kiosks in public places allow for an easier way to connect to care resources and handle administrative tasks. Remote diagnostics and testing, enabled by wearable devices, provide convenience and simplicity for patients managing ongoing conditions or recovering from procedures.
Robotic systems also play an increasing role in telehealth and telemedicine, as they allow for precise and accurate remote interaction with patients in scenarios such as remote surgeries.
The Future of Telehealth Technology
Telemedicine connects remote specialists for emergency assistance, enables health workers to avoid exposure to pathogens, and provides continuity of care for patients with chronic illnesses. It allows health teams to streamline routine checkups and ongoing patient monitoring and commit more face-to-face attention where it is most needed.
Providers, health administrators, and patients alike have realized the convenience, quality, and innovation that telehealth technology can bring to healthcare delivery. Telehealth use, which was approximately 25 percent in 2022, is expected to reach 50 to 70 percent in the coming years.2 As technology advances, more specialties and use cases are introduced, and people experience the benefits for themselves.
As telemedicine technology evolves, AI and edge computing advancements will enable greater use of real-time analytics to diagnose patients, respond quickly to emergencies, and share information.