Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, the terms telehealth and telemedicine have slightly different meanings. Telehealth is a broad term that refers to the use of telecommunications technology and electronic information to provide remote health-related services. This can include clinical medical care, health education for patients or providers, health administration and public health. Telehealth uses technology such as the internet, video conferencing, streaming video, imaging and other electronic communications.
Telemedicine is a more narrow term that is limited to remote clinical services, such as diagnosing and monitoring patients. Therefore, if a physician uses video conferences to diagnose remote patients and monitor their progress, the physician is engaged in telemedicine. If a city uses streaming video on its website to educate the public about COVID-19, the city is engaged in telehealth but not telemedicine.
Generally, telehealth facilitates the diagnosis, treatment, education, monitoring and management of a patient’s care while the patient is in one location and the provider is at another site. Telehealth can also mean collaboration between providers in different physical locations to diagnose and treat a patient.
There are several common modes of telehealth used today, including live video interaction; remote patient monitoring, where personal health information or data is collected at one site, typically at home, and that information is transmitted and stored to guide care decisions; and mobile health (mhealth), which means health care supported by mobile devices and mobile applications. The COVID-19 pandemic facilitated a more rapid adoption of these technologies, as doctors struggled to keep non-COVID patients home and out of medical facilities to reduce spread of germs.