The benefits of telemedicine

Technology has taken the forefront in the recent months due to the pandemic, with innovations such as online medicine compliance systems and virtual doctors consultations to the latest, government’s Covid Alert app for efficient contact tracing.

While technology has advanced in terms of equipment, investigating and imaging, it has lagged when it comes to primary care and day-to-day engagements with health workers. This is where most of the action happens in healthcare, says CEO of healthcare solutions Kaelo, John Jutzen.

“The digitisation of healthcare is key to two things – one is that there is more widespread access because it will drive down costs and the second is there is better health outcomes. Affordable healthcare is something that tech is going to bring,” he said.

In its own research, Jutzen said 75% of patients were willing to access healthcare through virtual tools, a much higher figure than the global 47%.

“We have launched a virtual doctor and virtual psychology visits on our virtual platform. You would engage our call centre or our booking system and schedule a time with a psychologist, therapist or a GP and we videoconference in,” he said.

“If you are at one of our clinics, the sister would do your vitals like blood pressure, temperature and other elements and the doctor can consult you [virtually].”

Graphic: Costa Makola. Source: gov.za

Virtual consultations avoided long waiting times, enabled quicker referrals to other specialists and also eliminated transport time and costs, said Naseema Ephraim, director at ASI Financial Services.

“The reach and benefits of telemedicine could be even further expanded to primary healthcare, where it could make a significant, positive difference to citizens who would have to travel for hours to a clinic and then wait even longer to see a clinician,” Ephraim said.

But the other side of technology is improving the low medicine compliance, particularly among chronic patients, as only 12.5% took their medication sustainably.

“How tech helps is we put these people’s details in an engine that has some type of learning capability, it can back-to-back onto our pharmacy benefit management systems,” said Jutzen.

“We have got a specialist pharmacy benefit where every time the drug is delivered, the system would flag the person as having the drug and would initiate an SMS to remind the person to take the medication. If they don’t take it, we would then phone them and see what is wrong.”

And the government has also joined, with a Covid Alert South Africa mobile app and a Covid Connect WhatsApp platform for effective contact tracing. The app, which is zero-rated by mobile networks and available on mobile app stores, uses Bluetooth technology to alert users if they have been in close contact with another user who has tested positive for Covid-19 in the past 14 days.

The health department has a WhatsApp and SMS service for those without smartphones to receive test results and be alerted of any possible exposure to the virus.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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