If you suffer from severe asthma, you could be in luck – new telehealth care options which offer health advice and treatments over the telephone could help keep those suffering with severe respiratory problems out of hospital, according to new research. This way of treating patients could save hospitals vast amounts of money and help to make treatment more readily available to people of all ages and severity.
In a recent study, researchers looked at 21 cases in which asthma patients dealt with health care workers over the phone, the internet, text messages or video conferencing, to see the effects of the treatment. In the majority of these cases, patients began their care with a face to face visit. Researchers stated the difficulty in pinpointing the active ingredients that make up a telehealth care intervention, and why this way of working helps some patients but not all of them. More than 10,000 people took part, both adults and children, from countries such as Australia, Japan, Croatia and United Kingdom.
Of course, speaking to care workers over the phone does mean that there is a risk of the patient being misdiagnosed, or that they could receive insufficient support for their various needs. During the study though, researchers encountered no problems that indicated this could be a risk. In fact, their care was no worse than what they would have received in a face to face meeting with a health professional. It is thought that the future of this technology could turn more to internet-calling software such as Skype or web applications such as Facebook, but at the moment the asthma literature doesn’t reach to these technologies. Further research is needed in order to ascertain whether this way of treating patients is cost-effective and a more efficient way of treating them than face to face diagnoses.
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