While the number of people isolated from any medical center is increasing due to many factors such as disabilities, lack of medical staff in remote areas, or risk of widespread contagious diseases, the need for medical care is still very heavy.
Nowadays, letting people without any access to medical treatment is inconceivable in a society where access to medical services is regarded as a fundamental right guaranteed under article 35 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Resulting from this article « Everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment under the conditions established by national laws and practices. »
Facing such necessity, medical providers had to adapt their activity in order to get closer to their patients.
In that type of situation, telemedicine proved itself to be a very useful tool. In reality, this tool isn’t new and demonstrated itself to be a key element for medical coordination and medical appointments during the Covid-19 crisis.
Even if this system cannot replace physical appointments with palpation examinations, telemedicine is an efficient way to provide healthcare remotely, in a more accessible manner when people can’t go to the medical center for various reasons. Now, thanks to telemedicine, doctors and healthcare providers can make diagnoses, and consult patients’ health and feelings sometimes through other digital devices.
This cost-saving access to medicine, reducing the patient’s need to travel, can increase convenience for patients as they can receive care from the comfort of their own homes. Consequently, patients present more satisfaction with the monitoring of their disease.
Another advantage of this system is the improvement of communication and coordination due to the sharing of patient’s medical records between specialists.
Nevertheless, even if this system seems to present a lot of advantages we have to take into account the disadvantages it can also bring. Indeed, technical problems are not always inevitable and access to telemedicine can be limited and inequitable sometimes. For those reasons, raising awareness of the usefulness of digital tools in the daily life of elderly and disabled people, especially in the context of social care, seems to be one of the major concerns nowadays.