Despite being introduced decades ago, it has only been recently (during the lockdown period) that virtual health care has gained significant importance in our everyday lives. It has made our lives easier and moreover has ensured the safety of everyone during the tough times and saved time that was spent on commuting.
Coming to the meaning of virtual health and virtual health care, even though the addition of the virtual does not take away the fact that it lacks something somewhere. Virtual health care refers to the use of technology which can include any means of communication from telephones, laptops, mobile phones, etc. that play a role in the delivery of health services from the doctor to the patient.
Virtual health care is quite essential in reaching and serving people especially during times where there is staff shortage and the lingering fear of infecting a communicable disease. Moreover, one can also get second opinions, advice, consultations, and other kinds of help.
Why is There an Increase in Virtual Health Care Lately?
Healthcare is a basic human right that everyone must have access to, and if not, then certain facilities should be made that help healthcare reach every part of the world. The onset and the increase in virtual health care have helped to attain this hindrance that was faced earlier. With the help of virtual health care, we are able to achieve and overcome the difficulties faced earlier.
It must be noted here that more than 96 per cent of the healthcare systems have expanded their system to virtual health care because of many factors like legislation, growing consumers, health payer influence, etc. Also, many of the private employers are also including various virtual healthcare offerings with their insurance plans that are employee-based. The rise in the health care benefit can be seen increasing from a good degree, which was 63 percent in the year 2017 and became 74 per cent in the year 2018. This helped significantly in reducing employee health care costs.
The Transformation of the Health System to the Virtual Health Services
The virtual health care system allows the health stakeholder and the patients too to share their data, related content along with the ability to perform personalized interactions every day. This helps a great deal for both patients and doctors to have access to high-quality interactions. There are many positions and tasks that can be easily delegated to the virtual health system like handling and scheduling the appointment of the virtual patients, putting the clinical notes to the electronic medical record, writing out prescriptions, engaging in the face to face conversations, etc.
The 4 Cs of the Virtual Health Services
The virtual health care system is seen as continuous care that is connected to the people digitally and other telecommunication technologies. The virtual health care system includes virtual meetings and virtual visits, telemedicine, asynchronous communication, remote monitoring, medication adherence, provider or clinicians, virtual consults, and virtual second opinions. Now let us take a look at the 4 Cs of the virtual health services that define its character.
1. Continuity
The first C of health care stands for continuity of home, outpatient and inpatient.
2. Connectivity
The next C of health care stands for connectivity of the asynchronous and synchronous modalities.
3. Coordination
The third C in health care stands for coordination between various persons involved in the virtual health care system like stakeholders to providers, providers to providers, consumers to life sciences, etc.
4. Care continuum
The fourth C of health care stands for the care continuum that involves well-being to acute and post acute care. What kind of conditions can be treated with the help of virtual health?
Via Healthcare IT News
As we all know that virtual health has its own fair share of limitations and not all conditions can’t be treated with the help of virtual visits. Some of them need physical visits to the hospital in order to get the proper treatment. Apart from that, there are various conditions that can easily be treated with the help of just a virtual visit. Here are some of the minor conditions that can be treated with the help of the virtual health care system.
- Most of the minor respiratory infections, cold flu, etc
- Various medication refills
- UTIs
- Sinus pain and other similar allergies
- Birth control
- Mild stomach pains ( non-urgent)
- Minor injuries, sprains and strains
- Common skin infections
- Insect bites and allergies
There are many other conditions that are left out that can be treated with the virtual health care system. You can avail of the virtual visits with the primary care and speciality provider that do not need an in-person examination and testing.
About the Virtual Health Jobs
As we talked earlier of virtual health being increasing ever since it was introduced and more after the lockdown. Virtual health jobs are also being offered at a high rate that pays well. Moreover, the medical and healthcare jobs have the most demand these days.
Therefore, the job positions are inviting applications for various positions that are ranging from nursing, medical coding to telemedicine and many more. Seeing the current conditions of the world and the success of virtual health, the employment sector under virtual health now will see an increase. It is said that the growth of virtual health jobs will be around 15% from the year 2019 to 2029. Considering the statistics, the demand of healthcare has never been on such a rise in any other sector.
Here are some of the companies that are offering virtual health jobs are:
- Aetna
- Anthem, inc
- CVS health
- Johnson and Johnson
- Merck
- Novartis
- Philips
- PRA health sciences
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