For millennia, patients have had to accept whatever treatment a medical professional happened to foist upon them. Whether the medical professional happened to be a witch doctor in the Amazon or a scalpel-wielding Victorian physician eager to perform a frontal lobotomy, patients had little choice but to follow the doctor’s orders. Throughout history, there was very much an ‘us and them’ divide between doctors and patients. Doctors knew it all, patients knew nothing. This was very empowering for doctors, but disempowering for patients.
Telemedicine has leveled the playing field. Thanks to telemedicine, patients now have much more choice and involvement in their treatment. Telemedicine is empowering patients by giving them massively increased choice, and also opening up a world of potential learning and education that was previously closed off to them. Patients can now take charge of their own treatment and make choices for themselves with the help of doctors, medical professionals, and telemedicine apps.
Obviously, most patients are not fully qualified to make decisions about their medical treatment completely independently, but the fact that telemedicine has empowered patients by giving them far more choice, and far better sources of information than ever before, is surely a good thing.
Here are 6 ways in which telemedicine is empowering patients.
Telemedicine Gives Patients More Control Over Their Money
Telemedicine has many money-saving benefits. It allows patients to choose from a far larger pool of potential health care providers, enabling them to find the most cost-effective treatment. It also does away with the need to take a lot of time off work to travel to lengthy in-person consultations. The money that patients save by using telemedicine is hugely empowering. Having more money to pay off debt, increase savings, or buy goods and services that they desire or need is very empowering for patients.
Saving money (and time) is one of the biggest benefits of telemedicine.
Telemedicine Allows Patients More Choice of Who They Consult With
In days gone by, patients had to consult with whatever medical professional happened to be based nearest to their location. This often meant that patients had to make do with subpar doctors or facilities. It also meant that patients sometimes had to be treated by doctors they did not warm to. This lack of choice of who patients could deal with was very disempowering. Telemedicine has empowered patients by giving them a much better choice of which medical professionals they can be treated by.
Telemedicine Makes it Possible For Patients to Live in Remote Locations
Before telemedicine, many patients had no choice but to live in locations that were near to medical facilities, but otherwise unappealing. Many people had to live in big, overcrowded cities just to be near hospitals and medical facilities. Telemedicine has freed patients up big-time in this regard. Patients can now choose to live in much more remote locations far away from the nearest hospital or surgery. Having the ability to live in a peaceful wilderness or small, friendly village, while using telemedicine to meet their medical needs, is very empowering for patients.
Telemedicine Gives Patients More Choice Between Different Treatments
There are many ways to skin a cat. Exciting new medical treatments are being developed all the time that can meet the needs of patients much better than older, traditional treatments. Before the age of telemedicine, exciting new treatments were often unavailable to patients whose doctor was not up-to-date with the newest research. Telemedicine has empowered patients by enabling them to choose doctors in distant locations that offer groundbreaking new treatment options.
Want to travel the world, but still access health care? Enter telemedicine!
Telemedicine Gives Patients the Freedom to Travel the World
The ability to up sticks and travel the world is certainly very empowering. Telemedicine enables patients to do just that by giving them the option to consult with their physician or health care provider remotely, from anywhere in the world. Thanks to telemedicine, even people with chronic health conditions can explore the world safe in the knowledge that, should they need to, they can contact their doctor from any location. This is hugely empowering.
Telemedicine Gives Patients Their Time Back
Time is the most valuable resource there is. Traditional medicine often robs people of their precious time by requiring them to make long journeys to hospitals or surgeries and to wait for interminable hours in waiting rooms and ERs. Telemedicine empowers people by giving them far more control over their time. It allows patients to choose much less time-consuming methods of treatment, and therefore save plenty of hours with which they can do as they please.