| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
Background: The sudden outbreak of covid-19 has faced fundamental challenges to health care systems. In this regard, telemedicine was noticed by the governments and health care providers and they tried to establish and benefit from it. The present study examines the performance of health systems of different countries in the use of telemedicine technology and identifies the opportunities, challenges and results of the use of this technology during the covid-19 pandemic.
Method: The present research is a qualitative study. In the first phase; A systematic review was conducted to determine the opportunities and challenges of using telemedicine in different countries. In the second phase, experts' opinions were collected regarding the opportunities and challenges of using telemedicine in Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, and the strategies for establishing the telemedicine program were presented.
Results: The outbreak of covid-19 created many opportunities for establishing and application of telemedicine, such as online scheduling, screening, diagnosis, treatment, electronic prescribing, information exchange, design and development of related systems, infrastructure development, supply and the allocation of financial resources for telemedicine programs and changes in rules and regulations. Despite the benefits of this technology, many countries faced many challenges in the way of benefiting from it, those challenges are lack of infrastructure, knowledge, access, diagnosis, patient visits, health information, costs and reimbursement, laws and Regulation, coordination, privacy and security and effectiveness. The strategies of using telemedicine in Hamadan University of Medical Sciences were presented in 8 fields.
Conclusion: The results showed that the use of telemedicine has been effective in the proper management of patients, reducing the risk of infection transmission, improving identification and treatment of patients,promoting and facilitating access to health services, managing time and cost of services.
Keywords: Telemedicine, telehealth, telecare, covid-19 | en_US |
