THE RAPID EVOLUTION OF TELEMEDICINE: A LITERATURE REVIEW ANALYSIS

Abstract Telemedicine, in the field of healthcare, is not a recent technology innovation. In fact, it has been in existence for the last 20 years, but it was recently introduced to both health care professionals and those seeking healthcare. On March 2020, when the COVID-19 virus was declared as a pandemic, telemedicine services received widespread attention. The pandemic in fact created a solid base for telemedicine and today it is one of the prominent services offered by hospitals and health care centers worldwide. This paper focuses on how collaboration between telemedicine, Point of Care Testing (POCT) and mobile health units can reduce the spread of the virus among both patients and healthcare providers by providing healthcare of the highest quality. The methodology includes reviews of different opinions of authors based on their experiences obtained during the pandemic situation and review of literatures and relevant articles of recent years related to the activities and shortcomings of telemedicine. Awareness, infrastructure, utilization, POCT devices, internet connectivity, and Health Information Management Systems (HIMS) are some of the scope and gaps observed during the literature reviews. Telemedicine services is of prime importance during this on-going pandemic and its intensity by combining with artificial intelligence is essential in this hour of need