03/12/2024 | Pankajkumar A. Anawade, Deepak Sharma, Shailesh Gahane
This comprehensive review examines the impact of telemedicine on healthcare accessibility, exploring its ability to overcome geographical, financial, sociocultural, and infrastructural barriers. Telemedicine, through remote consultations, monitoring, and diagnosis, extends healthcare reach to remote and underserved areas, enhancing temporal accessibility with 24/7 availability. It reduces costs, promotes efficiency, and fosters health equity by streamlining healthcare delivery systems. However, challenges such as technological barriers, regulatory hurdles, and patient acceptance remain. To realize telemedicine's full potential, collaboration among stakeholders is essential. Policymakers must enact supportive regulations, healthcare providers must integrate telemedicine into their practices, and technology companies must innovate user-friendly platforms. Through concerted efforts, telemedicine can advance healthcare accessibility and improve health outcomes globally.This comprehensive review examines the impact of telemedicine on healthcare accessibility, exploring its ability to overcome geographical, financial, sociocultural, and infrastructural barriers. Telemedicine, through remote consultations, monitoring, and diagnosis, extends healthcare reach to remote and underserved areas, enhancing temporal accessibility with 24/7 availability. It reduces costs, promotes efficiency, and fosters health equity by streamlining healthcare delivery systems. However, challenges such as technological barriers, regulatory hurdles, and patient acceptance remain. To realize telemedicine's full potential, collaboration among stakeholders is essential. Policymakers must enact supportive regulations, healthcare providers must integrate telemedicine into their practices, and technology companies must innovate user-friendly platforms. Through concerted efforts, telemedicine can advance healthcare accessibility and improve health outcomes globally.