Importance and Opportunities of Telemedicine in Resource-Poor Countries during Epidemic Situation

Abstract

This review article aims to present a general picture of what telemedicine entails and the importance of providing quality health care in various medical aspects. The field of telemedicine has noticeably grown-up, with a growing number of applications and a diversity of technologies in different medical specialties and clinical situations by using electronic signals to transfer the medical data from one place to another. At present, health authorities have high anticipation for telemedicine. It addresses several significant challenges to advancing healthcare access to overwhelm the scarcity of specialists tackling epidemic diseases. The article starts with a brief introduction to the evolution of telemedicine and its importance in the health care system. Then, we provide a conceptual context for the proliferation of related concepts, such as telehealth, e-health, and m-health. Our primary concern is to focus on telemedicine's role in epidemic situations, emphasizing the current pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19 ) and demonstrating how it can be used to provide definitive information about the actual effects of telemedicine in terms of cost, quality, and access. However, there is an emergent interest among government authorities, health care providers and medical professionals to enhance the efficiency of providing a wide range of medical services in terms of cost and time. Thus, the effective use of telemedicine and related technologies will be able to assist with it. We conclude that telemedicine should be considered as a potential tool to react to an emergency. Therefore, further research should be conducted to understand better how telemedicine could be applied wisely in epidemic situations.