Telemedicine video conferencing: A complete overview

Distanced healthcare services received a huge boost in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. But even today, when the COVID-19 lockdowns are over, a high interest in such services continues worldwide. Though some patients prefer to get consultations in the format of voice calls or via online chats, telemedicine video conferencing is a much more widely applicable option. It makes remote consultations much more efficient. In this blog post, we’d like to talk about the role of such solutions in healthcare and their benefits for all participants in this industry.

Let’s consider the most basic definition of this concept. Video conferencing involves establishing a visual connection between remote users over the internet that comes close to face-to-face interaction.

Video conferencing in telemedicine typically involves interactions between doctors and patients. Telehealth video calls can, in certain situations, serve as a replacement for traditional offline appointments, and are especially of value when face-to-face meetings are simply not possible. Internet communications can sometimes be the only option for a patient to get a medical consultation.

Such solutions allow doctors to conduct real-time consultations with patients, provide recommendations, determine diagnoses, and prescribe medications, regardless of their location. 

According to recent studies, the size of the telehealth and telemedicine market was close to $106 billion in 2023. By 2033, that figure is expected to rise to $912 billion, with that expansion indicating a CAGR of 24% over the next decade.

Remember that telemedicine video conferencing software represents only one segment of a huge market bringing together remote patient care services and tools as well as digital healthcare-related educational and administrative solutions. You can learn more about it in our article devoted to telemedicine app development.

Among the factors making a positive impact on market growth is investment by governments in innovative healthcare solutions and general technical progress.

Generally speaking, the key goal of launching any telemedicine video conferencing platform is a desire to improve the quality of healthcare services and patient support. Moreover, such projects can make medical services more readily available than they used to be. Now, to get a consultation, patients do not need to leave their homes and spend time and money on a trip. If the clinic is located thousands of kilometers away from where you live, with a video conferencing app this won’t be a problem. You can easily get connected with a doctor and ask all the questions you have. 

(Of course, you still will need to go to a laboratory if you need to take any tests. A doctor may also ask you to visit the nearest clinic if your condition requires a hands-on examination.) 

A telehealth video conference, conducted in a timely way, can save lives (and there are already such examples). It may be difficult to book an appointment with a doctor on the day alarming symptoms first appear because there are no empty slots. In comparison, it’s often easier to get an online consultation, during which a doctor may detect a serious risk and take measures to ensure you get timely care.

Video conferencing features often become part of the solution for remote monitoring of chronic conditions and enhance the process of working with patients and their treatment.

To better understand what new possibilities video conferencing brings to the healthcare industry and decide whether such solutions are worth the investment, let’s take a look at some of their advantages.

• Breaking down geographical barriers. Until recently, when a person needed a consultation with a doctor based in another country (or even on another continent), he or she had only one option — to go there. Such trips could be time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes even impossible. Now everything is less complicated. If you need a consultation with a doctor working in a different clinic or region, you just need to check whether they offer consultations at a distance. A majority of telemedicine solutions rely on WebRTC, which is an international standard. 
• Time-efficiency. Time is often one of the most important factors in treatment. The earlier you start to take measures, the higher your chance of avoiding a negative outcome. That’s why video conferencing can become a good solution.
• Cost-efficiency. This benefit is important for both healthcare providers and patients. Online calls are typically less expensive than in-person consultations or home visits. Patients don’t have to pay for transportation. But medical institutions also benefit because it’s possible to schedule more video calls per day than traditional face-to-face consultations, there’s no need to use medical materials during such visits, and focusing on telemedicine services may make it possible to decrease staff numbers.
• Better productivity. Being able to work with patients online allows doctors to achieve higher productivity, helping more people per day. With telemedicine services, clinics can reduce the volume of administrative tasks, allowing medical staff to focus more on other activities.
• Flexibility for doctors. Flexible working hours and the possibility of working from home at least some of the time is important to many people today. Traditionally, doctors were deprived of enjoying the work-from-home model. But physicians may now work remotely on days when they have only online consultations. This might be during quarantine periods or on a regular basis, if the flows at a clinic allow them to do it.
• Increased patient health awareness. According to some studies, more than 50% of respondents mentioned the availability of telemedicine as a motivator for them to pay more attention to their health and actively participate in making treatment-related decisions. Having access to regular video appointments makes it less challenging to follow the treatment plan properly. Telemedicine apps can also be used to promote preventive strategies that reduce the risk of developing more serious health issues.

Using a telehealth video conferencing platform for interacting with patients may seem very appealing to many doctors and clinics, allowing them to reduce operating costs and serve more patients each day. But it would be risky and irresponsible to prioritize these goals over the need to help people improve their health and even save their lives.

Nobody should provide remote medical services without full confidence that it is possible to help them via a video call. As practice shows, this type of interaction is most effective when the patient has a long-term or chronic condition, when the general picture is already clear, or in situations when there is no threat to the individual’s life.

Remote consultations are also much more effective when the patient already knows and trusts the doctor.

Video calls are a helpful adjunct to more traditional medical interactions but are not an appropriate substitute in all situations.

It’s also important to take into account the reliability and security of the software and the quality of the connection during consultations.

Some tips for doctors who want to conduct remote video consultations:

1. Before the appointment, ask your patient to provide you with supporting medical documentation (if any), which will help you better understand the patient’s case. If you have the required files sent, uploaded and read in advance, you won't need to waste time during the consultation.
2. At the beginning of the consultation, make sure your connection and the quality of video and sound are good enough.
3. Always discuss with patients whether your consultations can be recorded by them (or by you). 
4. It’s a good idea to use additional tools such as screen sharing during calls. This feature is useful for describing test results or explaining difficult concepts.
5. At the end of the call, discuss with your patient how you will send prescriptions and diagnosis documents. For example, you can share these documents via a video platform that you use, or you can send the documents to the email address indicated by the patient.

Skepticism about the future of telemedicine and telehealth in general is rooted in the fact that remote medical services are of limited use when a hands-on examination or additional tests are required to make a diagnosis.

But despite their limitations, it’s impossible to deny the advantages of such services.

Let’s not forget the rapid advancement in technologies. Telemedicine solutions can be augmented by IoT devices and smart sensors that can track patients’ vitals. That may lessen the need to visit a clinic.

Progress in spheres such as VR/AR technologies and AI tools looks promising for increasing the quality of remote services and the accuracy of diagnosis.

Of course, we can’t expect that telemedicine solutions will fully replace traditional hospitals and medical centers. But in the near future, we can expect them to become more advanced in ways that will make it possible to integrate them into traditional medicine more seamlessly.

Our team can deal with projects of any complexity across various industries. But healthcare software development is one of those fields in which we have gained the richest experience. Our developers deeply understand the needs of this market and can find the most feasible approaches to solving wide-ranging tasks.

One project we worked on was an online therapy web with live video chat functionality. The main goal of launching this application, dubbed PRISM Therapy Online, was to allow users to find the best therapists and get consultations in an online format, via chats and video calls.

The app works the following way. A user first completes an online assessment. Based on the results of this assessment, the system will provide the user with a list of three therapists whose skills correspond to the existing issues that need to be addressed. Then, the person can choose the best specialist and one of the available consultation formats. After that, he or she can book an appointment and pay for the consultation online.

The telemedicine video conferencing functionality is ensured thanks to the integration of Agora. This service for remote connections allowed our developers to make video calls simple and comfortable for both patients and therapists.

To learn more about this solution and its functionality, you can follow this link.

Telemedicine solutions have already become a standard part of the healthcare systems of many countries. This mass adoption has proved their effectiveness and demonstrated their value during crisis periods in healthcare (such as several waves of the coronavirus pandemic) as well as during comparatively calm times. 

Though many still prefer face-to-face visits, more and more patients and doctors of different ages have discovered the benefits of this type of interaction. Healthcare providers looking for a competitive advantage are doing so by offering remote video consultations.

If you need the help of professional developers to create a modern solution with video conferencing functionality, at Cogniteq, we are always open to cooperation. Don’t hesitate to contact our team and share your ideas with us.