Understanding The Difference between Telemedicine, Telecare and Telehealth
With the rate the world is growing, it is often hard for us to take in and process all of the information around us. When we fail to fully understand the world around us, we will more likely than not be left behind in the dark, unable to keep up with many conversations.
This is especially the case with healthcare. With the rapidly evolving healthcare industry, things are being thrown out and updates at a rapid speed. In addition, people can be easily misled by the vast amount of fake or misleading news. Due to the vast amount of medical information available, no one would blame you for not fully understanding every medical term.
One of these many medical terms that are easily confused would be Telemedicine, Telecare and Telehealth.
The phrases telemedicine, telecare, and telehealth are sometimes used interchangeably, which is a frequent mistake. The fact is that each of these words relates to a distinct method of providing health care using current infrastructure or a separate field of medical advances. Below is a full description of each phrase to help you understand the minor distinctions between them.
Telehealth
Telehealth is a wide phrase that encompasses health information services, health care education as well as health care services in general. One reason people confuse Telehealth with Telecare and Telemedicine is that both Telecare and Telemedicine are sometimes lumped together under the umbrella phrase telehealth. Telehealth technology allows for the remote diagnosis and evaluation of patients, as well as the remote detection of changes in the patient’s medical state at home, allowing drugs or particular therapies to be adjusted as needed.
One other impressive feature of Telehealth is that it allows for e-prescriptions and treatments to be administered remotely to a patient.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine refers to a very specific branch of healthcare separate from telehealth. It more specifically relates to remote education and the delivery of health care services using telecommunications technology. Telemedicine is the use of information technology and electronic communications to offer therapeutic services to patients over long distances. Some examples of the usage of Telemedicine would include the digital transmission of medical imaging, remote medical diagnosis and assessments, and video consultations with healthcare professionals.
Telecare
Telecare is mostly commonly used by the elderly as it allows people to maintain their independence in daily life while staying connected with their healthcare providers at all times Mobile monitoring gadgets, medical warning systems, and telecommunications technology such as computers and cellphones are examples of this technology. Telecare can monitor lifestyle changes over time and receive notifications about real-time crises thanks to continuous remote monitoring of patients. However, usage of telecare is not just limited to the elderly, readily available devices like smartwatches can also be used as telecare in that it alerts emergency healthcare services in the event of an accident or fall.