We all know the challenges that come from just not feeling well enough to drive the distance, to meet a doctor closest to you.
Or if there’s an urgent business meeting as you work from home, but still need medical advice instantly.
Or if you just prefer the safety of consulting with a doctor from the comfort of your home.
These are the times when you would need an online doctor by your side, wherever you are. It’s a well-known fact that the New Normal brought about by the advent of the Great Pandemic has turned the entire ecosystem of how we live, interact, buy, work, play and learn, on its head.
Work From Home (WFH) is an increasingly growing trend as of now, but WFH might as well stand for ‘Wellness From Home’ too!
Online consultations have now made it easy for a patient to effortlessly connect with a doctor remotely from home, to get an entire diagnosis and treatment done in minutes and even have the medicines delivered, without the patient ever having to leave the comfort and safety of home.
What really bridges this gap and enables telehealth consultation is of course the technology that goes with it.
This was evident during the rise of the pandemic, when it became a necessity for healthcare providers across the UAE to devise an effective and ‘virtually’ possible way to deliver online consultations with their patients, where it became ‘physically’ impossible to be present in person.
How do you benefit from a virtual consultation?
- It’s convenience at ‘your’ time: You now have the flexibility to fix a telehealth consultation with your online doctor as per your schedule, without having to put off time from office or postpone doing your groceries.
- It saves time, saves money: You save up on parking fees, and money on commuting, not to mention, an unexpected rush hour traffic that could delay your appointment.
- It cuts down on endless waiting: Why turn a physical appointment into a ‘disappointment’ by a walk-in to a clinic and endure long waiting hours while also tiring yourself further by being the last number in long queues?
- It’s peace of mind: You can save the bother of not having to anxiously rush anywhere allowing you to save extra effort, energy and quality time for yourself to recover faster.
- It’s safer: Exposing yourself to others is avoided, since you are in the protection of your own home!
What are the essentials of a successful virtual consultation?
The technology that empowers and makes effective virtual consultation possible is key. Here are a few things to keep in mind when assessing the right virtual consultation for you:
- Easy to operate: It’s not enough to have a great laptop with all the gizmos loaded in, it’s also about its ability to have easy-to-use features that support your diagnoses and function seamlessly for you as the user when doing a consultation online with your trusted doctor.
- Clarity is everything: It’s always important that you have uninterrupted clear diagnosis from your doctor and your conversation doesn’t lag – in order to avoid confusion when taking medical advice or while sharing your symptoms. The quality of the voice and the crystal clarity of the screen is important when it comes to arriving at an accurate diagnosis.
Poor WiFi connectivity can also hamper a two-way conversation, so make sure the WiFi status is checked before you get into a telehealth consultation. Hand gestures, facial cues and voice modulations and pitch, are all essential indicators of a patient’s level of health for a doctor as it proves essential in aiding the diagnosis and the recommendations for treatment, so clarity is key.
- Guaranteed security: Doctor-patient confidentiality is a key factor while undergoing a virtual consultation. Proper firewalls and secure aids are an essential guarantee too which must be provided and considered. Both patients and your telehealth doctor, must enjoy a level of confidence and assurance that their consultation is private, secure and sacred.
- Keep the Face-to-Face option: Sometimes, you need to keep in mind that technology also has its shortcomings as not everyone is comfortable using it while some people simply enjoy the option of having a physical face-to-face conversation at the clinic. So, keep this option open via a ‘book an appointment’ section.
How the SmartDoc from HealthHub Clinics can virtually treat you:
SmartDoc is part of a Telehealth integrated solutions package from HealthHub Clinics that aims to make virtual consultation faster and easier for everyone.
Simply put, it is a device that uses a compact and easy-to-maneuver, telehealth cart outfitted with a medical tablet. The tablet is cyber-secure and connected with WiFi and ethernet, and is used to connect you to any of our doctors.
During a virtual exam, our physicians / specialists at HealthHub Clinics remotely control a PTZ (Pan, Tilt, Zoom) camera to video conference with their patients while simultaneously viewing real-time comprehensive medical data and conducting full physical examination (these would include vital signs, auscultation or ECG).
The SmartDoc device then seamlessly transfers the collected information of the patient and data to Electronic Medical Records for future reference and features a full range of assessment tools and diagnostic capabilities.
To know more about how teleconsultation through SmartDoc can best work for you, or to book an appointment, call HealthHub Clinics today on 800 2344.
