Telehealth is the provision of medical care services using technological modalities instead of, or in addition to, traditional face-to-face methods. Benefits include more flexible scheduling, access to therapy in native languages (e.g., American sign language), and other advantages.
It is much broader than both telemedicine and teleradiology. It allows for long-distance communication between patients and health care professionals. This communication can include care, reminders, guidance, education, intervention, monitoring, and even private admissions.
Telemedicine is medicine, such as interactive medicine, store and forward medicine utilizing technological progress to provide care at distant places. A medical professional uses a telecommunications infrastructure to provide care to a patient at a remote site in one location.
Teleradiology is the procedure of giving images with radiology information of patients to distant radiologists for review and reporting. It includes Ultrasounds, PET/CT, X-ray, and MRIs communicated electronically to the offsite radiologists for assessment and reporting.
Telehealth is different from telemedicine. It is because it refers to a broader scope of remote health care services than telemedicine. Telemedicine refers specifically to private clinical services, while telehealth can refer to remote non-clinical services.
Though teleradiology and telemedicine are very distinct procedures, they are similar in some ways. Both allow medical professionals to provide high-quality patient care from a distance and require technology to communicate.
Telehealth, telemedicine, and teleradiology have better accessibility in rural areas, increased efficiency, and lower costs. These three have proved very useful and helpful in the global emergency of COVID-19.
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