Progress by humans is driven by an intense desire to unearth the unknown. Humans are often steered by intuition or insight, which isn’t always rational thinking. Human discoveries were triggered by intuition and visualization and technology proved to be a tool enabling man to reach the unknown.
Teleradiology emerged from the need to progress beyond the constraints to making care available in challenging circumstances.
Health care providers had to overcome barriers to make care available when diagnostic reports like CT Scan, PET CT Scan, PSMA PET CT Scan, Xray or MRI couldn’t be interpreted due to the unavailability of radiologists.
Teleradiology overcame these barriers by using technology. Interpretation of reports was made available to health care professionals in any part of the world by sending the reports via the internet to an expert teleradiologist operating from any geographical location. Here the barriers of distance were challenged and humankind went a step closer to improving health care.
So, how does teleradiology challenge the barriers to health care?
Better consultation:
When subspecialty teleradiologists provide their interpretations to the general radiologists they can add value to the result. They improve the final radiological report and consultations at the same cost.
Generally, patients consult another subspecialty radiologist for further study and interpretation. They have to pay an extra cost for it. But, teleradiology centers dissipate information in the form of detailed reports studied and interpreted by subspecialty radiologists. This eliminates unnecessary procedures and follow-up examinations. Thus, the patient saves the additional cost of further examination.
Comfortable environment:
Teleradiologists can provide services to physicians and patients in the comfort of their office or home. The patient doesn’t have to visit any radiology center personally. The PACS software makes it possible to transfer images where the teleradiologists are placed. The interpretations are then electronically transferred.
Educational tool:
Teleradiology can be a tool with case presentations shared by educational centers for groups of radiologists or individuals in the hospitals. Rural health practitioners unable to leave practice to attend conferences or meetings can benefit from these teleradiology reports.
During emergencies:
You live in the USA and your city is hit by a tornado, and immediate assistance isn’t available. In such challenging times, images are sent to teleradiological centers based in India or any other country. This creates a significant impact on treatment by harnessing technology to the benefit of health care. The positive impact on care extended to the patient is by the virtue of timely interpretation of the reports. Here the radiology staff cannot reach their workplace due to the natural disaster and teleradiology provides a befitting solution.
An integral part of telemedicine:
Telemedicine is a technology that makes treatment available to patients unable to reach the health care provider. Immediate care is needed thus, patients connect with health care professionals on the phone, through texts, chat or video.
All the line of treatment gets registered in an application accessed by the health care professional and the patient. Here the reports can be saved on the application and made available anytime to any health care professional.
Teleradiology applications use telehealth tools by which digital images from radiology equipment get compressed and sent quickly in the form of data. Thus, teleradiology collaborating with telemedicine improves the quality of care.
Artificial intelligence:
AI makes it possible to improve the interpretation of reports and captures the minute details that might skip the human mind. Teleradiologists are susceptible to making errors owing to the high pressure of interpreting images. In such a case AI and deep learning can provide flawless interpretations/results.
Also, a huge amount of data is generated that is used for various purposes like research and applying it to make innovative products contributing to improved health care outcomes.
Here humans might be racing with technology where it is possible that AI might take over human employment. But Yuval Noah Harari the author of ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ says that the worst problem will be for developing countries who would have to retain the workforce.
AI could split the world where developed nations retain their people for new jobs. While countries like India and Mexico would fight with unemployment. But with AI cheap labor that is available in India will no longer be an important commodity.
Valuable data will be captured from poor countries and benefits will be gained by rich countries. So now data ownership will be the key to growth.
Progress continues as now technology gets a step ahead of humankind in its quest to unearthing the unknown.
Future Teleradiology based in India provides teleradiology services all around the globe. You may be located in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania or any other country- reach out to us for the best teleradiology services.
Get in touch with our team to know more about our teleradiology services.
Our expert team will be glad to assist you.