Telemedicine Implementation and Challenges in the Post-COVID-19 Era
摘要
Telemedicine is a promising field that has proved its functionality through COVID-19 pandemic. It helped to reduce pressure on healthcare systems, control the spread of the virus, save the essential personal protection equipment, and maintain the access to basic healthcare services for the patient. The healthcare research society preached about the promising potential of the technology post the pandemic. However, telemedicine faced noticeable decline in its use in the post-pandemic period. It still struggles with numerous challenges that hinder further implementation post-pandemic. Telemedicine faces limitations as the lack of technical knowledge, the lack of patient/practitioner physical interaction and examination, privacy and security issues, and regulatory and legal challenges. This article suggested possible solutions to deal with these challenges. Based on what has been observed and published from previous studies, we investigated the possible causes behind decline of the services’ implementation, the challenges that telemedicine is still facing, and we offer the probable solutions to overcome these challenges.