For just over two years, life changed completely for millions of people. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused nothing to be the same but has also boosted some services that already existed. One of the main ones is Telemedicine, born half a century ago to bring health services to rural areas. Although now it has become quite frequent and one of its most popular variants is that made up of medical consultations online. Now all that is required is a connected device and communication can be established instantly.
Main advantages
This modality is popular due to all the benefits it offers both doctors and patients. The first and most important is that There is no risk of contagion due to the absence of physical contact. Because everything is done remotely, there is no danger for both parties. That is why more and more people opt for this service.
In addition, there is also the saving of time and comfort because it is not necessary to move to other places. In fact, the medical staff can offer the service from any space.
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2025, 75 percent of patients will opt for online medical consultations as a method of care. This does not mean that the face-to-face service will disappear, although with what we live today due to confinement it is clear that they will decrease in number.
Specialties that have grown the most
According to Adrián Alcántara, general director of PhD Mexico, a platform that facilitates medical consultations online, during the past year there was a record increase in services of this type. While for this 2022 the trend is expected to continue.
- In March 2020, online consultation was enabled with nearly 4,000 registered health professionals. In 2021, this number increased to more than 14,500 specialists.
- In 2021 alone, more than 590,000 reservations were made for online consultations, compared to last year, it increased by 181% more.
- The medical specialties with the highest number of online consultation reservations were: Psychiatry, Endocrinology, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Dermatology and General Medicine.
- The cities where the most online consultation reservations were made were: Mexico City, State of Mexico, Jalisco, Nuevo León and Querétaro.
“Today more than ever, health professionals need to digitize processes without neglecting the customer service experience, so that it continues to be effective and also contributes to bringing health and knowledge closer to experts at critical moments of the pandemic” .
Doctoralia is the most visited health platform in Mexico, with more than 190,000 professionals, 8.5 million visits per month and more than 720,000 responses to patient health questions answered by around 18,000 specialists who interact in the “Ask the Doctor” section. Expert”.