What Is Telehealth?

New Orleans telehealth is the use of telecommunications technology to provide care and health services from a distance. It enables patients who require medical care to communicate with their providers from the comfort of their own homes via cellphones, tablets, and PCs.

Telehealth also includes health-education programs such as diabetes management and nutrition classes. It is distinct from telemedicine, which refers to the virtual delivery of clinical care.Although telehealth has been available for decades in the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has hastened its widespread acceptance. Within weeks of the World Health Organization designating COVID-19 a pandemic, and as lockdowns, quarantining, and social isolation became commonplace, in-person healthcare visits plummeted.

"The pandemic created a huge public health issue, but the biggest problem wasn't that COVID-19 patients couldn't get care—it was that people without the disease couldn't access their normal care," Michael Okun, professor and chair of neurology at the University of Florida, said in November 2020 to Science magazine.In the COVID-19 personal finance help packages authorized by Congress in April 2020, patients were explicitly encouraged to employ telehealth services. And doctors welcomed the shift. According to a Medical Economics 2020 telehealth survey, 77% of clinicians used telemedicine for the first time as a result of the coronavirus.

KEY LESSONS

Telehealth, or remote delivery of healthcare services, has been around for decades, but the coronavirus pandemic has hastened its adoption in the United States.

Checkups, sickness screenings, mental health treatments such as therapy sessions, weight management counseling, and other services are examples of telehealth services.

States control how telehealth is defined and paid in terms of insurance coverage.

The present telehealth boom is likely to produce a few of clear winners, the platforms of which will be embraced by large healthcare providers.

How Telemedicine Works

Telehealth essentially refers to all of the methods that patients and doctors can contact with one another when they are in separate areas using technology. Emails, phone conversations, video calls, text messaging, and other types of digital communication are examples. New Orleans telehealth can deliver the following sorts of healthcare:

Examinations by doctors and other healthcare providers

• Screenings for diseases such as COVID-19
• Therapy sessions with mental health professionals
• Nutrition counseling, weight control, and other sorts of chronic health care and coaching
• Care for those in rural locations who do not have access to healthcare.
• Follow-up appointments following a hospitalization
• Non-emergency care for inhabitants of long-term care facilities