Telemedicine Report: Assessment, Trends, and Tele-dermatology

This report provides a comprehensive overview of telemedicine, exploring its assessment and analysis of patient situations, future trends, and the specific application of tele-dermatology. It delves into the use of technology for remote patient monitoring, including the collection and analysis of vital signs via mobile devices and sensors, and discusses the benefits and challenges of telemedicine implementation. The report also highlights the trends in telemedicine, such as data analytics, cloud access, enhanced security, and investment opportunities, along with the significance of tele-dermatology for the diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases. The discussion emphasizes the advantages of telemedicine, particularly in rural areas, and the use of mobile applications for patient care. The report concludes with a discussion of the mobile tele-dermatology and its advantages, providing insights into how technology is transforming healthcare delivery and improving patient outcomes.

Running head: TELEMEDICINE
Telemedicine
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
With the growing prevalence of the disease, telemedicine is one of the efficient technology
that is useful to reduce the global burden of the disease (Weinstein et al. 2014). Transmission of
medical informations was by horses, on foot and ships through thousands years ago. However,
among the Information révolution in this decade the ways of transmission of information has been
developed to produce the telemedicine. Health care professionals define ‘Telemedicine’ as
technology to transfer the patients’ data in order to treat them when the distance is critical factor.
Mobile ECG is an example of telemedicine where it diagnoses the heartbeats of patient then
transfers the data to doctor immediately by wireless. While current Information révolution observe,
improvements requires in many domains of it (Smaradottir et al. 2018). The aim of this assignment is
to investigate concept of telemedicine and possibility of treating patients with a combined service
contain a quick time and high quality.
A brief overview of the background will be provided, followed by four main sections.
This paper emphasized on hospitals of rural or urban area in developing countries.
The first section will explain the process of monitoring and diagnosing situation of patient along
with assessment and analysis through telemedicine. Trends of telemedicine in future and Tele-
dermatology will be discussed in the third and fourth sections respectively. Lastly, the paper will
provide a concise conclusion and recommendation in last section.

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Discussion:
Assessment and analysis of patient’s situation through telemedicine:
Among last a few years, remote healthcare systems started acknowledging the importance
of the tele-medicine. Therefore, evaluation and collection of vital signs continuously are basic
criteria in these cases. In order to evaluate vital signs, long-term healthcare and 3G connecting to
hospitals is crucial internet network that will deliver both data and information. Some physiological
signs are received by this system such as Electro Cardio Gram ECG, degree of body temperature,
SpO2 and blood pressure and transfer them to smart data analysis in order to diagnose and explore
chronic diseases (Panlaquiv et al. 2017). Easy interface among internet for professional health team
is available to take note of signal pulses for remote treatment. In case of an unusual event, all
physiological signs will be transferred directly to far health server by internet or cellular network or
both of them. By GPRS data able to transferred to mobile phone of the doctor or parents (Kahn et
al. 2018). A prototype of such system has been successfully developed and implemented, which
will offer high standard of healthcare with a major reduction in cost for our society.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol
GPRS: General Packet Radio Services
SpO2: stands for peripheral capillary oxygen saturation
ECG: electrocardiogram
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
PDA:

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First, the biological sensors obtain the vital signs (physiological information’s) then transfer
them to the processing unit. Several accumulated evidence focused only on designing these sensors
to be tiny in size, maintain patient mobility, and consume low operating power to reduce battery
size, which can last for longer durations. A collection of wearable medical sensors could
communicate using personal area network or body network that can be even integrated into user’s
clothes. At the next stage, sensor layer of every remote monitoring system is typically connected to
the processing device for signal acquisition, processing, analysis, and formatting data to be sent to
the communication layer (Obikunle, Gossett and Mayer 2016). The processing unit may evaluate
patient status and trends in patient’s medical condition. The processing unit can be PC, mobile
phone, or embed system (micro controller, DSP processor, and FPGA. Many medical algorithms
were developed in recent telemedicine studies to help doctors in diagnosis of patient and early
detection of cardiovascular diseases.

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Processing of telemedicine:
Processing of telemedicine system is divided to two modes, which involve real-time mode
then store and forward mode. First mode is where information of the patient present in server ends
after acquisition directly whereas access of involved data in future is present in second mode. Both
of the modes transmissions of vital signs occur by networks of the computer, cellular, telephone
networks, and Television cable to the server. Moreover, the places of using of PC by expert
professionals to analyze the data and patients place mostly hospital or houses where computer is
available to transfer the data (Obikunle, Gossettand Mayer 2016). The use of the wired network
connected PCs limits the degree of freedom of both doctors and patients to move.

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More specific are the present physiological sensor, signal processing, embedded system, and
wireless communication and World Wide Web technologies.
1) Mobile care unit: it is the simple unit contacting to patient's body, which aimed to acquire
immediate or periodic vital singes within no impact on patient’s daily activities. Transfer the data to
remote server by wireless communication that occurs through either by cellular networks or the
internet.
2) The remote server: during huge human database, the remote server can store the vital signs and
show these signals to health care professionals among selected applications for diagnosis.
3) Pervasive devices: These are mobile phones, personal digital assistant (PDA) and laptops.
Through these terminal devices, parents and doctors can watch useful information about the patients
anytime and anywhere (Weinstein et al. 2014).
Benefit of telemedicine:
Benefits of telemedicine are accelerating fast these days in order to provide care services to the
population either to the patient lived in rural area and not able to travel to hospitals in urban area or
for patients in local hospital who need specific consultations from doctors in specialist hospitals.
One of these ideas are created interface website, which can be accessed by phones of health care
professionals to share medical information and discuss the patients’ issues in the same field, and
telemedicine can facilitating medical education by allowing workers to observe experts in their
fields and share best practices more easily(Weinstein et al. 2014). Another benefit is

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monitoring of patients through technology is more easier than before, some of vital signs can be
observed and transmitted to the health professional with no delay of time. Transmission of
heartbeats of patient by apple watch to doctor’s mail is an example that applied sex months ago in
the health care.
On the other hand, adverse effect of telemedicine contain include high cost of electronic
equipments and communication programs and tools, also periodic training of professionals is
costing continuously, store patients’ data and pictures is in danger at some country from hackers,
Hackers maybe hide or edit the data and pictures even they can destroy systems. Virtual low quality
of records transmitted as 3D pictures, graphs, videos and periodic patient reports is one of critical
risks, which may need periodic maintenance. Another disadvantage of telemedicine is legal
regulation that led to estrangement many insurance companies and governments programs
(Dalmida et al., 2017). Other obstacles to the implementation of telemedicine include inability of
doctor to treat some patients because unavailability of some medication or injections in patient’s
hospital or leak some telemedicine’s technologies such as tele-rehabilitation, tele-pharmacy and
tele-trauma care (Obikunle, Gossett and Mayer 2016).
Trends of telemedicine in future
With growing branches of telemedicine, which is updating and developing every year, both
patients and doctors are receiving several benefits. These benefits will shape industry of health care
in future and is called telemedicine trends. I will elaborate it in next paragraphs.
1.Patient’s data collection and data analytics: physicians can select the dangerous risk factors for
some diseases by collect patient’s data, which they will recommend their prophylactic treatments.
Patient’s data will be transferred directly to physicians by mobile applications and sensors such as
ECG device and these data produce reports to observe cardiovascular activities and other activities.

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2. Mobility and Cloud Access: In order to save patients’ data and decline rely of paper, health care
team will store patient’s data in clouds frequently. In addition, 65% of dealing with health care
facilities are done by mobile phone current year (Weinstein et al. 2014).
3. Enhanced Security: security of data in future will be more enhanced and vital. Some techniques,
which will enhance data security for telemedicine that involve Do penetration testing frequently, all
mobile devices must be encryption and conduct to do HIPAA security, check annually.
4. Better Investment Opportunities: Investment Opportunities will increase when China and India
started to practice telemedicine from western countries, because telemedicine is growing quickly
and significantly. Moreover, larger telemedicine providers are collaborating with international
medical institutions, helping them to spread their expertise abroad, widening the telemedicine
market, and generating more revenue (Dalmida et al., 2017).
5. Better Healthcare Apps: Telemedicine applications are expected to increase in next few years,
which will be more flexible to transfer the data between patients and doctors, and easy the
interaction between them. There are many applications like MDLIVE, Amwell, MyTeleMed.
Depend on some applications’ quality, user reviews and its reliability HeathLine journal
started to list some applications useful for patients. Among these applications, patients will receive
healthcare services from a doctor via video or voice call by download and try these applications.
Especially in popular problems like headaches, sinus infections, urinary tract infections and fevers.
As mentioned in Heath Line, it is the best telemedicine applications in 2017 combined with some
features for every app.

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1. MDLIVE:
This application advice patient is either adult, older or children by doctors whom available any
time. These advices are focused in depression, headache, fever or cold or flu and ear infection.
2. LiveHealth Online:
Give a patient contact chance and talking to dietitian, board-certified doctor, therapist, and other
medical experts by video call.
3. Express Care Virtual:
Without an appointment or waiting rooms, patients can get a medical care directly from
Smartphone, tablet or laptop. Their descriptions will be sent to pharmacy online.
4. Amwell:
Doctors, dietitian, or psychologist will be able to answer your questions about fever or cough at any
time of day.
5. First Opinion:
Some people have full schedule. so, they can not select time with doctor, but with First Opinion
application they can Consult a doctor from home any time through a minutes.
Tele-dermatology
significance of Tele-dermatology
There are high percentage of people who suffer from dermatological diseases, which include
several unknown and dangerous effects such as deformity and discomfort. Consequently, it leads to
depression and other mental illness. Diseases such as psoriasis in the hands, nails, and face, are
portrayed as embarrassment to patients and may be perceived as deformities. Furthermore, many

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skin diseases such as eczema, fungal diseases, and scabies lead to severe symptoms such as severe
itching.
Mobile Tele dermatology
Mobile tele dermatology can be defined as the capture and transfer of images and data by
smart phone to dermatology consultants. Some chronic diseases need a great deal of monitoring to
develop the most appropriate treatment for the sufferers, so this technology is suitable for them.
Tele dermatology is popular in Australia because of shortage of the dermatologists and more than
half of doctors and trainees there had sent or received clinical images by smart phone once weekly
in six months. Moreover, skin problems are distressing which last for longer period of time and
delay in diagnosis give rise to the serious consequences. Therefore, tele dermatology become very
popular amongst patient for providing number of dermatology services to medical locations or
through applications.. There were about 29 mobile phone services for patients in US in 2014-2015
for patients especially, pediatric patients.
Advantages of tele-dermatology: ongoing monitoring
The patients can take photos for themselves and send them to doctors immediately without
appointment, which is a major advantage for mobile tele dermatology. Therefore, teledermiology is
required for patients who need a follow-up service after facial laser treatment to send pictures of the
skin every day in order to monitor their situation after the procedure. Tele dermatology is able to
reassure the patients about some negative reactions, which are normal and expected and tell them
these reactions such as crusting; swelling and exudation are of the healing process.
Mobile applications for Dermatology
Number of growing evidences suggested that mobile applications taken care of dermatology
and provide have many services to the dermatological patients for couple of years. These

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applications are efficient in connecting the patients with consultants and specialists. The benefits of
the tele-dermatology for the specialists include allowing them to observe the treatment plan of their
patients, sending the prescriptions to pharmacy online, receive a receiving images and videos
captured by patients and transferring them to health teams, which involved in decision-making. In
addition, there are applications, which can allow connection among all derma team members to hold
periodic conferences (Obikunle, Gossett and Mayer 2016).
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be concluded that telemedicine is crucial for providing services to the patient
who lives in rural area and face frequent problem in the transportation for reaching to the hospital
for the treatment or for the patient who requires constant assistance of the health professionals. The
mortality rate can be decreased by use of telemedicine.

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