Artificial Intelligence-Telemedicine

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE-TELEMEDICINE:

Mythology of Telemedicine Operations

Joseph O. Esin

Professor of Computer Science/Cybersecurity

University of Calabar, Nigeria

Synopsis

Telemedicine is clever way of attending to the medical health of all sorts of

patients; especially, those in remote areas and in critical conditions that require

experts and specialists who are physically far removed from healthcare consumers.

This innovation in healthcare service method will definitely replace; if not

supplement, the low-esteem and unpopular means of delivering and exchanging

healthcare services, clinical assessment, and communication between physicians

and patients. Today, the emergence of the modern telemedicine operations has

triggered comprehensive opportunities alongside with variety of success and

numerous benefits for patient care, flexibility, reliable healthcare assessment,

treatments, and recovering outcomes. It has equally increased collaboration

between healthcare professionals and the patients, the global communities, and

slowly in most military operations. Telemedicine is not in full operation in most

military arena because some military commanders maintain that the incorporation

of telemedicine in military theater will directly interfere during bumping into direct

gunfire, and shrapnel-pierced casualties in firefights, and will circumvent the

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activities of a military on-site physicians who are struggling to manage and care for

seriously wounded military personnel. On the contrary, current researchers such as

Timpel, and Harst, (2020), Ives, (2018), Esin, (2020), defended the situation by

affirming that due to the modern technological maneuvering, telemedicine services

are in no way capable of circumventing on-site military healthcare, activity-

physician; rather, such services will provide the much urgently needed experts and

specialists attention which are far removed from the war zone to provide the

needed critical service. So, these researchers call for collaboration for the interest

of our military service and the world community because telemedicine and

associated technologies have proven to be dependable and beneficial to medical

practitioners, patients, healthcare consumers, and the global community in multiple

ways.

Key Words: telemedicine, telesurgery, healthcare, e-health care, quarantine,

collaboration, circumvent, remote patient monitoring, COVID-19 pandemic,

remote patient monitoring.

Introduction

Telemedicine is an advanced modern communication healthcare technology

designed to deliver health care services using technology across considerable

physical distance to patients. The up-to-date telehealth care interactive

technologies are engrained with a variety of advanced, computerized equipment,

allowing physicians, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals to provide complex

clinical services thousands of miles away from the physician’s clinic and hospital

locations of service (Totten, Womack, Dana, Eden, Eden, Griffin, Grousing, and

Hersh, 2016). Vast areas of medical services have been progressively connected

and challenged using innovative, complex technological devices to support various

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healthcare delivery processes. Telemedicine approach has been enhanced by

reliable Internet-based medical sites to provide an enormous amount of

information about diseases, treatments, and pharmacy locations for patient to fill

and refill prescribed medications. Hailey, Roine, and Ohinmaa (2001) and Esin,

(2020) have all acknowledged and documented this fresh breakthrough in

telemedicine, using mobile technologies and e-health techniques which provides

medical services culminating in an invaluable line of resources that are accessible

by mobile computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones in the same life-saving

process.

Telemedicine is an organized technological mechanism designed to bridge

the gap between the availability healthcare professionals and allied healthcare

professionals, and proximity to patients’ locations and financial constraint. Per

Breen & Matusitz (2010) and Hailey, Roine, & Ohinmaa (2001), modern

telemedicine technologies are equipped with smart alarms to communicate vital

information such as transpiring clinical emergency, medication refills, increasing

and decreasing dosages, discontinuing medications between physician, healthcare

professionals, local pharmacies, patients, patient relatives and caretakers.

Clinical Reward of Telemedicine

Hospital industries, patients, and human communities are fully rewarded

from the dynamic operative nature of telemedicine and remote patient monitoring

(RPM) systems. It is an acuity that RPM is playing a key role in the advancement

and improvement of the global community healthcare services. The present-day

expansion of telemedicine and associated technologies is culminating in reducing

the inclusive cost of hospital visits, healthcare professionals and patient expenses.

The reward that comes from telemedicine service to humanity is invaluable and

has encouraged and precipitated the promulgation of wide-ranging sophisticated

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technologies designed to engage physicians, allied healthcare professionals,

patients, and hospitals systems in a massive life-saving process.

According to Esin (2019), the unexpected emergence of COVID-19

pandemic inflicted almost irreparable healthcare setups and establishments across

the global community, extending its tentacles and challenges to the vicissitudes in

transportation of patients and their safety, along with conveyance of physicians and

allied healthcare professionals to the hospitals and respective clinics. Today,

telemedicine activities are supporting and solving problems that were encountered

in the former medical delivery methods. Today, tele-medical processes have

gained popularity by highlighting the essential reward of RPM such as enduring

improvement decision-making regarding physicians and patients’ schedules and

office visits. Per Ives (2018), Jin, Kim, Miller, Behar & Correa (2020), and Timpel

& Harst, (2020), modern telemedicine is a practical foundation of medical

treatment engraved with multitude of devices. According to the assessment of

these researchers, telemedicine is a veritable, rewarding apparatus to diagnosis

terminal and life-threatening illnesses, playing a vital role in diagnoses, treatment,

and cure of most stages of HIV/AIDS, and other disease infections. Regardless of

the severity of the disease and magnitude of stigma, modern telemedicine is

helping to support, increase patient levels of communication with physicians and

allied healthcare professionals, and to decrease the risk of infection process

(Totten, Womack, Dana, Eden, Eden, Griffin, Grousing, & Hersh, 2016).

Hailey, Roine, & Ohinmaa (2001), Esin (2020), and Ohannessian & Duong

(2020), in their studies on the importance of telemedicine during the sudden

outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that affected citizens of

approximately over 203 countries, asserted that the initial and timely response

strategy was facilitated by entrenched knowledge of patient diagnosis, isolation,

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symptomatic monitoring of contacts with suspected and confirmed cases, and

public health quarantine. In the process telemedicine framework, mainly video

consultations, were promoted and scaled up to reduce the risk of transmission the

deadly COVID-19 through physical contact in many countries. The result of the

studies validated and confirmed an updated framework for telemedicine in the

COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the unquestionable relevance, dependability,

and services of the telemedicine structure during the world deadly pandemic;

therefore, the evidenced-based telemedicine should be applied at a large scale to

improve the national and global health predicament.

Framework to Value the Undervalued Clinical Process.

There is an ongoing outcry calling upon the healthcare industry, hospital

system, physicians, allied healthcare professionals, patients, and the affected and

none-affected communities to form a united front to appreciate the value of

telemedicine, and to acknowledge improved modern telemedicine technologies as

active operative medium for healthcare service delivery operations. The

undisputable value of and contribution of telemedicine to the healthcare services

lie in its proactive culture in all phases encircling healthcare delivery, and the

physicians’ and allied healthcare professionals’ life-saving clinical judgment based

on patient condition, consideration of patient treatment plan, and proximity to the

hospitals and treatment clinics which must also be documented and remain

standardized. (Totten, Womack, Dana, Eden, Eden, Griffin, Grousing, and Hersh,

2016 & Ives, 2018).

In one accord, the present-day studies on telemedicine by Hailey, Roine, &

Ohinmaa (2001), Timpel &Harst (2020), and Esin (2020), concluded that

telemedicine technologies provide healthcare providers and consumers condition-

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specific and user-friendly options to manage life-threatening health conditions such

as post-surgical rehabilitation in various patient populations, single and multiple

chronic morbidities, maternal, and childcare malignant neoplasms. Their up-to-date

and comfortable devices help in improving the health condition, maximize

associated costs of patient in-person visits to hospitals and physician clinics. It is

my contention that the acceptance and recognition of the eminent value in

telemedicine will definitely help to avoid the inconvenient expenses of travelling,

babysitting expenses, car parking expenses, and the taking of time off work,

thereby constituting an added-value and major breakthrough in healthcare history.

Telemedicine is a dynamic, effective, and successful means of positively

delivering, and exchanging healthcare services, sharing clinical assessment data

with patients, and using highly sophisticated technologies to engage physicians,

allied healthcare professionals, patients, patients’ family members, and relatives in

aggressive life-saving process

Indeed, it has been established that telemedicine operative is a life-saving

healthcare service which differs from traditional medical practices because of its

modern digital equipment and technologies. Telemedicine operative is currently

used to expand healthcare services to patients by creating the fertile ground for the

growth and advancement of clinical services. Furthermore, this new operative

supports often provides changes from the expensive route to affordable and

accessible use of modern techniques to serve the deserving patient populations. To

make this great innovation more useful and serviceable to patience, our

practitioners should research and identify the culture of deficiencies, where

changes are required, and come up with best practice guidelines available to

patients, trajectories of care, greater degrees of built-in flexibility, and proximity to

patient residents.

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As group of telemedicine researchers, Hailey, Roine, & Ohinmaa (2001),

Breen & Matusitz (2010), and Esin (2020) posited, most physicians and allied

healthcare professionals are challenged with conflicting priorities such as whether

to accept or reject this never method of medical services. Hence, telemedicine

operations must include patient-education orientation, self-management support,

exchange of data and information amongst each patient’s physician and with allied

healthcare health care providers. The process should also cuddle the transfer of

images and medical data, expedition of contacts with health professionals, and

uninterrupted support regarding the distance to patients with chronic diseases. Of

special significance, is the crucial needs of patients with type-2 diabetes,

hypertension, heart attacks and strokes where time and distance to medical help are

very essential. Telemedicine gives them opportunities to meet up the appointment

for regular annual check-ups with a primary care physician, dental visits, follow-up

appointments, especially when further healthcare treatment is often and almost

impossible with physically challenged and psycho-socially challenged individuals.

Patients who live in remote rural areas often encounter snags in attempt to locate

healthcare providers practicing in the same vicinities. It is inevitable that the

consumers are required to travel millions of miles overseas and long distances for

medical treatment, and follow-up services. And Telemedicine is a likely panacea

for these handicaps and challenges

Most patients are physically, mentally, and financially challenged with the

burden and ability to travel to physician clinics and healthcare facilities due to

limited mobility and restricted access to public transportation stations.

Telemedicine services is recognized as one of the most effective and efficient

opportunity to provide healthcare to individuals, families, and communities, who

would, otherwise have no access to healthcare providers on a regular basis

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including psychiatry, radiology, dermatology, remote surgery known as

telesurgery. Telemedicine often presents a valuable, remarkable, flexibility,

unrestricted, modern mobile technological and operative corridor to provide

quality care for the needed population. Telemedicine services are increasingly

popular, flexible, and available, and the current trends indicating these services are

readily available to consumers over time. Advancements and progress in related

telemedicine technologies are urged to adapt the existing, efficient, and higher

quality care to civilian and military populations (Ives, 2018; Esin, 2020).

Challenges and Solutions on the use of Telemedicine in Military Arena

Telemedicine is not a functional operation in most military combat situations. Most

military commanders often decline telemedicine services in military arena to avoid

treating direct gunfire personnel, and shrapnel-pierced casualties. The idea has

been to avoid circumventing the activities of on-site physicians, while managing

and caring for serious military wounded personnel. On the contrary, Timpel and

Harst (2020), defended the situation by stating that technologically maneuvering,

telemedicine services are in no way capable of circumventing activities of on-site

military physicians and that the incorporation of telemedicine is a vital service in

military theater that should be strongly encouraged. As Ives (2018), Esin (2020),

and Timpel and Harst (2020) conceived, telemedicine and joined modern

technologies have proven to be dependable and beneficial to civilian and military

medical practitioners, patients, and healthcare consumers in multiple ways. These

innovations make available experts and specialists, who may be physically

removed from a wounded person or an emergency situation, to attend to the

patients.

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Lesson Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic ranged each nation’s alarm doorbell. World

leaders were charged with the traditional responsibility of doing what could be

done to curb the devastating effects of the pandemic for their countries, that is, to

become effective, efficient, dependable, defensive, and offensive commanding

officers who place their priority on a substantive increase in the budgets for health

care. Then, the only unchallenged and all-inclusive concerns were the global

health-care security of vulnerable private citizens. The entire education enterprises

all over the world were shut down and the learning process obstructed and

modified virtual learning in countries where computers and the internet were

accessible. I must admit, physician and allied health-care professionals and other

frontline responders stood firm for the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Equally, telemedicine is entrenched with the ability to cuddle the transfer of

images, medical data, and information progress with physicians and to provide

uninterrupted support regardless of the distance to patients with chronic diseases,

and to provide opportunities to meet up the appointment for regular annual check-

ups with primary care physicians, dental visits, and follow-up appointments, and

further healthcare treatment. Most appointments with physically challenged

patients had always almost been impossible; but today, appointments with

physically challenged and none-physically challenged patients are available

through telemedicine’s operations. Patients who live in remote rural areas often

encounter snags in attempt to locate healthcare providers practicing in the same

vicinities, and it is now predictable that telemedicine has closed the gap requiring

patients regardless of the physical condition to travel millions of miles for medical

treatment to obtain medical visits and treatment and follow-up services from home.

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References

Breen, Gerald-Mark and Matusitz, Jonathan. (2010). “Evolutionary Examination of

Telemedicine: A Health and Computer-Mediated Communication

Perspective.” Journal of National Library of Medicine. Bethesda, MD.

Esin, Joseph O. (2020) “Impulsive Time Ahead of Healthcare Operation in Event

of the Next Global COVID-19 Pandemic.”

https://www.washingtoncybercenter.com/publications-projects

Hailey, David, Roine, Risto, and Ohinmaa Arto. (2001). “Systematic review of

evidence for the benefits of telemedicine.” Journal of National Library of

Medicine. Bethesda, MD.

Ives, Aysha. (2018). “The Benefits of Telehealth for the Modern Healthcare

Consumer.” Journal of National Library of Medicine. Bethesda, MD.

Jin, Micheal X., Sun, Young Kim, Miller, Lauren J., Behari, Gauri, and Correa,

Ricardo. (2020). “Telemedicine: Current Impact on the Future.” Journal of

National Library of Medicine. Bethesda, MD.

Ohannessian, Robin and Duong, Tu Anh. (2020). “Global Telemedicine

Implementation and Integration within Health Systems to Fight the COVID-

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19 Pandemic: A Call to Action.” JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.

Paris: France.

Timpel, Patrick. And Harst, Lorenz. (2020). “Research Implications for Future

Telemedicine Studies and Innovations in Diabetes and Hypertension.”

Journal of National Library of Medicine. Bethesda, MD.

Totten, Annette M, Womack, Dana M., Eden, Karen, Eden B., Griffin, Jessica G.,

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