With the explosion of tech startups across Africa, Telemedicine is no longer a nice-to-have, it is a great resource for value-added service and revenue growth for healthcare providers in Nigeria who know how to deploy it. 

First, let’s dissect the concept of telemedicine.

Do you remember back then when communicating was more challenging? It was not always simple to convey a thought or idea to another person. Consider the era before cell phones were widely used. 

I know this is really sentimental. Imagine the healthcare sector now. Think about the early versions of the hospitals you see today. Consider the challenges that early medical professionals faced; after all, medicine wasn’t all that sophisticated.

But hey! This is 2022, the era where technology meets health. A lot of things once thought impossible have now become realities, and we’re here to explore them to the fullest. So, let’s get started. 

What is Telemedicine?

Simply put, it is the use of technology to diagnose and treat patients in a distant locations. So, when you see a medical consultant using a computer, hopping on a virtual consultation with a patient, using a phone to interact with their patients, or even messaging, it’s safe to say they are applying telemedicine. 

Telemedicine makes it feasible for clinicians and patients to converse virtually anytime, wherever they need to. 

What then is eHealth?

It may be more difficult to come up with a single, universally agreed definition in this case. To a reasonably large extent, many view E-health as the death of telemedicine because, with it, telemedicine ceases to exist as a specific field. 

e-Health encompasses the distribution of health information to health professionals and consumers through the internet and telecommunications, as well as the teaching and training of health workers and the administration of health systems. To others, “e-health can be considered to be the health industry’s equivalent of e-commerce,”

Benefits of Telemedicine for your patients

1. Remote Monitoring (Home health Telemedicine).
2. Telemedicine is Faster, More Convenient, and more Comfortable.
3. Reduced Risk of contracting communicable fast-spreading illnesses. 
4. Reduced Travel Time for your patients.

Common telemedicine services in Nigeria

With a population of over 200 million Nigerians, you can be sure that the Nigerian healthcare industry faces a variety of challenges. As a result, many healthcare providers try to mitigate these challenges by doing what may appear to be basic but extremely effective initiatives. 

Among these is the use of telemedicine providers. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the telemedicine options available to Nigerian healthcare providers.

Omomi: The app was created for nursing mothers with children under five years old. With features such as Private Chat with a doctor,  Mother’s Community, Growth Monitor, Diarrhea management, Information on Breastfeeding, Food Supplementation & Family Planning and a Maternal calculator.

Mobihealth: This is a telemedicine app that links patients practically anywhere in the world to certified doctors. Mobihealth is definitely a go-to app for online consulting due to its customizable subscription rates and a team of some of the finest medical practitioners.

Hyella mobile app: Hyella mobile, as a subset of the Hyella software, continues to bridge the healthcare industry’s bottlenecks by giving a more flexible means for doctors to engage with their patients via their mobile app, which has the same functionality as the software system. You may now consult with patients in East Asia, Canada, or anywhere in the world, write reports, and generally manage your hospital from anywhere in the world.

MyPaddi: I’m sure this one is quite familiar to many of us reading this, especially if you usually watch channel 198 on DSTV. lol. So, using this app, users may engage anonymously, share their ideas and experiences, ask questions about life, sex, relationships, and health, and even speak with physicians! The user has access to sexually transmitted disease tips, sexual abuse tips, contraception use, and a period checker.

Hudibia: This app connects you to doctors, health care tips, and ambulance services across the globe. Linking its users to competent healthcare providers, learn about prevalent health conditions,  plan hospital appointments or request house calls, and even call an ambulance.

How to Grow Revenue with Telemedicine

As a healthcare provider, how can telemedicine help grow your business and allow you to serve more?

1. Access to Specialists.

Specialized care can now be made available easily. Your patient can now consult with your cardiologist at any time instead of just on Thursdays

2. Less Time in the Waiting Room.

You can now consult from various locations across different parts of the globe, thereby reducing the crowds in your hospital’s waiting room. 

3. Control of Infectious Illness.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was exposed to the harsh reality of an easily spread virus. The advent of the pandemic has emphasized the importance of using telemedicine for healthcare delivery, as virtual consultations and processes can help healthcare providers reduce the risk of widely spread illnesses, diseases, and viruses.

With telemedicine, you can keep up with your patients anywhere in the world. With telemedicine, you can still keep your patients, whether they are travelling and can’t make it for their checkup physically or entirely relocating to a new country. Nothing has to change. Telemedicine makes your job easier and your patients more comfortable.

Telemedicine allows specialized niches to compete with more diverse niches in medicine i.e. level the playing field

If you’re running a newly sprung facility, you might want to participate in telemedicine as this gives you an added advantage and helps increase patient satisfaction, which in turn increases inflow. Not to mention, it’s quite impressive, especially in Nigeria.

Conclusion

As we stated in the introduction of this blog, we live in a time where technology meets health, and technology is playing an increasingly important role in enhancing patient healthcare access and delivery, particularly in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Telemedicine has been shown to be a useful addition to face-to-face hospital visits in making optimal hospital healthcare delivery convenient to patients irrespective of geographical or physical barriers! 

Want to take the step today? Reach out to a professional for FREE ADVICE