Table 3 Application of telehealth in specialised services & advantages before COVID-19
High-Income Countries (HICs) | ||
Year | Author(s) | Key Findings |
2014 | Bradford et al., [15] | In Australia, telehealth is equally an effective way of treating paediatric palliative care. Virtual spaces provide an opportunity for clinicians to observe the living surroundings of patients and include these observations in diagnosing conditions. |
2018 | Jong et al., [8] | A study in Nunavut, Canada postulates that the implementation of telehealth reduced travel costs by 50% for patients, health professionals, or both who would have traveled to seek or render specialized healthcare services. |
2014 | Durland et al., [9] | Some health facilities in the United States (U.S.) are using telehealth through telephone-mediated psychosocial interventions to manage depressed medical populations confronting significant barriers to face-to-face treatment. |
2018 | Selzler et al., [16] | In the context of Canada, features of telehealth such as telemonitoring, teleconsultation, tele-education, and telehealth-pulmonary rehabilitation are used in the management of chronic respiratory diseases. |
2013 | Turner & McGee-Lenon, [2] | A study that assessed the advances of telehealth over the past 10 years in the UK showed that pre-COVID-19, telecare systems provided social connectedness to the aged. Reminders were integrated into telehealth systems to alert forgetful adults to watch their favourite television programmes. |
2015 | Garcia et al., [4] | A study by Gracia et al. stipulates that in 2015, telehealth reduced costs associated with health conditions for patients in U.S. and Brazil while eliminating the distance between patients and doctors. Telehealth efficiently ensured clinical data sharing, patient’s visualisation and inspection through high-definition cameras, and real-time collection of vital signs. |
Low-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) | ||
2019 | Siddiquee et al., [17] | The implementation of telehealth in Nepal is addressing issues such as geographical remoteness (21%), shortage of healthcare service providers (11%), extreme conditions (10%), cost (9%), service quality (9%), and real-time services (8%). |
2014 | Bagayoko et al., [18] | The implementation of telehealth in Mali increased patient visits from 8% to 35%. Patients who utilised telehealth saved an average cost of $25 and maximum of $75 compared to those who traveled to cities for face-to-face specialised services. |
2016 | Chakrabarti & Shah, [19] | As cited in Chakrabarti & Shah, clinical outcomes of telepsychiatric interventions are comparable to face-to-face treatment among patients of all ages, ethnicities, cultures and diagnostic groups across diverse clinical settings. |
2015 | Ganapathy K. [20] | In India, although there are only 2.67% of the total neurologists and neurosurgeons living in rural communities covering a population of 84.59 million, the implementation of telemedicine has partially resolved the acute manpower shortage. Video Conferencing (VC) systems are commercially applied to conduct teleconsultation sessions for neurological patients. |
2019 | Sayani et al., [21] | Telehealth is improving chronic disease outcomes in LMICs while reducing cost for patients living in LMICs. |