Telemedicine – Revolutionizing Healthcare

Introduction

Telemedicine is a combination of 'tele' and 'medicine,' hence literally meaning- healing at some distance.

• It is the mobilization of healthcare services using telecommunication technologies.

• It has enabled doctors and specialists to diagnose and treat patients irrespective of their distance.

• It has brought remote locations and rural areas within reach of professional medical supervision and given this unprivileged section the ease and convenience of being treated from their respective homes.

• It has revolutionized healthcare by bringing the best possible healthcare professionals to every doorstep.

• It has several benefits to both the patients and healthcare providers.

Patients:

• The convenience of being treated at home

• No traveling expenditure

• No risk of contagious disease

• Privacy

Doctors:

• Efficient monitoring of multiple patients in less time

• Lesser cancellation of appointments.

• More revenue

History

One of the first accounts of Telemedicine is when doctors in Pennsylvania started experimenting in Teleradiology and devised methods to share radiologic images by telephone between places over 20 miles apart. Later, some improvements were made, and a new system was introduced in Canada during the 1950s. Although the term Telemedicine came to existence in the 1970s, the practices in this field began a couple of decades ago.

Earlier, it was thought that this technology would solely serve the purpose of treating patients living in remote and inaccessible places. With the advancement in technologies, medical workers realized its true potential. A major successful project named STARPAHC was introduced in the 1970s, aiming to provide improved healthcare facilities remotely in Southern Arizona.

With extensive research and development in this field, Telemedicine has gradually become an essential part of our daily lives during the following decades.

Telemedicine Technologies

Drones used to provide healthcare facilities

The research in Telemedicine has only increased since the outbreak of the Corona Virus. People have finally started realizing the importance of remotely accessed medicinal facilities. Some of the technologies that have made the provision of healthcare services more accessible are-

• Drones

The University of Cincinnati, in a press release, stated that experiments were conducted for developing drones to be used to provide healthcare facilities. These drones are equipped with cameras and a display screen to provide secure conversations between patients and healthcare workers. The drones (yet in their development phase) are large enough to carry the required number of medical supplies but small enough to move around the narrow confines of a household.

• Lab-on-a-chip

Technological advancements in Nanotechnology have enabled experimentation and testing on minute devices called Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC). LOC technology can provide easier diagnostics in medical offices and places without access to laboratories. The Engineers developed a new device at Rutgers University based on this technology. Medical tests for diseases such as Syphilis, Lyme disease, and HIV are usually costly and require large blood. These microfluidics-based devices require small testing samples that make the procedure more affordable for the patients and the researchers. This technology helps diagnose patients who cannot reach a medical site for actual testing as small samples can easily be collected remotely.

• Telemedicine robots

Remember Baymax from Big Hero 6? It turns out that the fan-favorite robot from the 2014 Academy award-winning animated feature was not just a fictional piece of art. The accuracy and ease of remote patient diagnosis have increased with telemedicine robots' involvement. They are programmed to provide the real-time health status of patients and alert the doctors in case of an emergency.

• Artificial Intelligence

AI-driven tools have redefined the scope of Telemedicine. They help in the automation of medical report generation, prescription translation, and providing self-care applications and predictive algorithms for the smoother diagnosis of patients.

• Virtual and augmented reality

Companies, such as Inflexion, are working in AR to develop apps facilitating real-time health tracking and diagnosis. The doctors can easily monitor patients' vital signs with the help of Virtual reality.

Market analysis

Global trends

Considering the benefits that Telemedicine offers, it is no surprise that this industry has expanded to a massive $55.9 Billion (2020), which is expected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 22.4% from 2021 to 2028. Covid-19 has undoubtedly contributed to such an enormous growth rate, as can be seen from the comparison provided below-

Pandemic and future outlook (Source : Lumenci)

As per Fortune Business Insights report, due to the presence of industry leaders, including the likes of Teladoc, MDLive, etc. and consistent support from the government, North America was the clear leader in terms of market share in telemedicine, with market size of about $17.90 Billion (2019).

Major Industry leaders

• American Well (Boston, U.S.) is a telemedicine company that provides software solutions for secure video communication of patients and doctors.

• MDLive Inc. (Sunrise, U.S.) offers healthcare services on demand; a telemedicine company develops a cloud-based platform to provide smooth communications between medical workers and patients.

• Teladoc Health Inc. (Purchase, U.S.) is multinational telemedicine and virtual healthcare firm that provides licensable platforms services, AI and analytics, medical opinions, and telehealth devices.

• Doctor on Demand Inc. (San Francisco, U.S.) is a video telemedicine company offering scheduled and on-demand visits by US-licenced healthcare providers.

Domestic Trends

India, a developing country, has a significant population still preferring the traditional methods; the county didn't show any major advancements in telemedicine during the previous decades, which isn't shocking. According to the EY-IPA study, the domestic telemedicine market could expand to a whopping $5.5 billion by 2025. Some of the major players are Practo, 1mg, and mFine.

Global Patent filing Statistics 

Filing patents for one's inventions is an age-old practice observed across all domains. As people are exploring the potential of Telemedicine, copyrights and trademarks in this field are steadily increasing in number. Let's look at the patent filing trends related to the usage of Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, Drone technology, and Robotics in the field of Telemedicine.

Count of patent families for Telemedicine (Source : Lumenci)

The above chart fortifies China's dominance with the number of parent families globally. China enjoys the lion's share of the patent families, with the United States trailing by a mile, followed by Europe. Indians are yet to recognize the true potential of telemedicine and its relevant technologies, which has rendered them far behind in terms of the patents filed in this domain.

Yearly patent trends for Telemedicine (Source : Lumenci)

Inspecting the count of patent families' trend, we find that from 2007 through 2020, we see a steady ascend in the count but a considerable decline in 2021. The said decline seems to be a direct consequence of COVID-19 and hence, the slump in numbers.

Future Prospect

Although it might seem that connecting doctors and patients virtually is a brilliant yet simple idea, Telemedicine has its fair share of shortcomings that need to be considered before its implementation. The costs incurred while setting up a virtual environment, evading the legal barriers set up by the government, and staying clear of the fraudulent healthcare workers promising to cure cancers with a single pill, are just some of the many practices that must be kept in mind while availing remote medicinal services. Thanks to the rapid advancements in technology, it is safe to assume that Telemedicine will only get easier. The presence of smartwatches, upcoming virtual healthcare start-ups, heavily involving robots during surgeries, and advanced Artificial Intelligence has assured a promising future for Telemedicine.

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Author

Editorial Team at Lumenci

Through Lumenci blogs and reports, we share important highlights from the latest technological advancements and provide an in-depth understanding of their Intellectual Property (IP). Our goal is to showcase the significance of IP in the ever-evolving world of technology.