The Role of Telemedicine During the Covid-19 Pandemic

 by Muhammed Sahil

Telemedicine is the practice of medicine through the use of technology, in order to deliver care at a distance. This may be locally or even internationally where a physician provides support/advice on patients to other medics across the globe. Telemedicine broadly falls into two different forms:

Synchronous telemedicine which is performed in real time e.g. through video call between the care provider (e.g. doctor/nurse) and patient. It can also occur from provider to provider e.g. an emergency department doctor may consult with a cardiologist in order to develop the best possible treatment for a patient.

The second form is Asynchronous telemedicine in which the patient/provider don’t communicate at the same time. This may mean that patients are required to answer a set of clinical questions from their physician on a secure website, and the physician will then review and respond, meaning that the patient/provider can provide information at their own time, convenient to them.

This couldn’t gain any more relevance than it does now with around 97% of healthcare leaders having expanded telehealth access since the arrival of the pandemic, according to a survey from the Medical Group management association.

Virtual care has played a variety of roles during the pandemic including:

It Protects medical personnel and patients 

Many high risk individuals/ those with chronic diseases can have their routine appointments with their GP over the phone/video call which would also reduce their risk of catching the virus. 

Enables radiologists to read from anywhere 

Many radiologists are now using technology at home and was already becoming quite common in order to serve patients living in rural areas/international patients.

It helps conserve supplies and bad space

By keeping low risk patients at home, this reduces the number of hospital beds in use and so may even prevent some Healthcare systems from being overwhelmed.

Supports specialities such as cardiology and psychiatry 

Virtual Cardiovascular care can include virtual home visits, smartphone based rehab exercises and nurse aided consultations.

Furthermore, since many individuals have been struggling with stress and anxiety, this  has prompted an increase in online counselling

Brings care to populations in need 

Telehealth can improve access for marginalised groups faced with challenges such as limited resources.

The Arian Teleheal charity 

What more could portray the dedication and desire of doctors than the actions of Waheen Arian, a British Doctor and radiologist born in Afghanistan, who founded this telemedicine charity.

If you think the UK has been struggling, how do you think low income countries are coping?

Well through this charity, doctors in low resource countries/conflict zones are able to communicate with volunteer specialists to provide advice for care on patients in different scenarios through the use of smartphones, messages and video chat etc.

Since the start of the pandemic, Dr Arian along with other medics part of this charity have provided subsidiary support to ICU’s, to doctors treating patients for mental health concerns and strategic consultancy support helping people in India, South Africa, Uganda, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan.

Dr Arian is not just any ordinary doctor we should be thanking for healthcare provided during the pandemic but this charity goes all the way back to 2015. A pilot was surveyed across five hospitals in Kabul, Afghanistan and was judged to be a success with the charity declaring that dozens of lives were saved.

As a result of the success. Arian Teleheal had astonishingly been rolled out to all major hospitals in Afghanistan. In addition, following a further three year study, it turned out that their volunteer Doctors had assisted care for 1,100 patients along with saving nearly 700 lives during that time scale.

An individual who grew up during a civil war, who then migrated to a refugee camp in Pakistan for five years to now saving lives not just in the UK but back home along with other struggling countries this man deserves great respect. With just the use of a smartphone he along with other medics have allowed thousands of lives to be saved outside of the UK.  

A quote from Dr Arian which I think is significant is “Wealthy nations should stop saying 'surplus vaccines' when it comes to supporting low resource countries.

It's not a charitable donation but part of the pandemic strategy to suppress COVID everywhere. 

We are only safe if the whole world is safe.”