Canada is known for things like its cold winters, its love of hockey and its maple syrup. Sometime soon, it might also be known for being the telemedicine capital of the world. It certainly has all that it needs to become a world leader in this area and it really isn’t too hard to imagine a day when people all over the planet are receiving remote medical care from Canadian doctors and specialists.
As you may already be aware, Canada is home to some of the best doctors on earth, world-class healthcare facilities and top medical schools, too. Canada is a multilingual, multicultural and multi-talented society. With these resources, the country could very easily have a thriving telehealth industry that could serve those in need at home and abroad. Those in the know state that telehealth is poised to experience massive growth and reports suggest that we’ll see 18.5% annual growth in telehealth worldwide through 2018. The United States is expected to outpace all other countries. It’s projected that its telehealth market will balloon to $1.9 billion in 2018 from $240 million today. That’s explosive growth.
It’s easy to understand why people the world over would be interested in using their computers and smartphones to get medical consults from knowledgeable Canadian doctors and specialists. However, it might actually be fellow Canadians who will be most interested in their services. After all, seeing a medical professional can often take longer than it should in Canada and telemedicine offers a potential solution to this problem. Telemedicine will undoubtedly gain in popularity in the country as more and more people come to discover just how easy, convenient and time-saving telemedicine can be.
Getting the word out about the potential of telemedicine is something that could really make it grow in Canada and elsewhere. Most people probably aren’t even aware that nowadays there’s so much more possible with telemedicine than just giving a person the ability to communicate with a doctor. For example, a patient equipped with a full-featured RxPense can get in contact with doctors, share their medical data, have their vitals monitored, have prescriptions electronically ordered, get medications delivered and even have their pills dispensed for them. It’s almost as if you can have the staff of a hospital care for you in the comfort of your own home. Managed care facilities, hospitals and seniors residences benefit directly from reduced labour costs, increased supervision and better outcomes.
The Canadian public stands to gain greatly from the growth of telemedicine in their country. Some will benefit directly by using the services themselves and others will benefit indirectly from the money brought in by making Canada’s medical resources available to people all across the world. The profits realized could be used to help finance the Canadian healthcare system and this, in turn, would help to lessen the burden on it. Clearly, promoting telehealth in the Great White North is something that needs to be done now and over the next few years. The potential benefits are just too great to be ignored.
Tags: cost-effective healthcare, digital health technologies, healthcare cost, telehomecare
Originally published at www.medipense.com.
