Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access

What is telemedicine?

Ylenia Sgaramella^{* *}Correspondence: Ylenia Sgaramella, Department of Telemedicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy, Email:

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Editorial

Have you ever heard of telemedicine? From this point of view, Italy is still lagging behind, but technology is making considerable steps forward, which will allow us in the not too distant future to receive diagnoses and to carry out in order to be able to treat remotely. The patient will be able to be followed effectively in visits, monitoring and administering therapies, despite not being directly in the clinic in close contact with the doctor. This type of need arose in the context of the hospital pharmacy. The hospital pharmacy is responsible for the preparation of drugs, created specifically to meet the needs of the patient, according to a pre-established therapeutic plan, whose dosages and active ingredients must be dispensed according to pharmaceutical forms not present in the current industrial market.

About the study

Inside the hospital pharmacy the patient's therapeutic path is followed at 30 degrees, between the pharmacists who prepare the drug inside the hospital itself, and the doctors who follow step by step the various phases of patient care, in hope to improve the pathology. The patient's adherence to drug therapy is generally always closely traced, precisely because through the hospital pharmacy and hospital channel, it is possible to monitor for any signs of progress, failure or remission of the problem. As this need has become increasingly persistent, hospital pharmacies are no longer able to take on the entire patient therapy follow-up process. Therefore, it will be of fundamental importance to homogeneously enhance the services provided by local pharmacies throughout the territory, precisely to lighten the workload present within the hospital pharmacy and at the same time guarantee the patient the availability of drugs. Related to your care, even at these facilities, at any time. The patient will no longer have to go to the hospital pharmacy inside the hospital, because what we intend to build in future years will be the possibility of guaranteeing the patient the availability of the drug he requires for the maintenance of therapy in any pharmacy in the area. But if the patient can go to a different pharmacy each time, how can we monitor his therapeutic adherence? How can we be sure that the patients, perhaps due to the occurrence of a side effect, does not immediately stop therapy without the doctor? How can we compile a statistic, which allows us to assess whether the therapy is effective on a large scale?. We simply would not be able to, because all this data would be lost and there would be no tracking. In this regard, telemedicine was born, which would allow with its technological advancement, to follow the monitoring of therapies and at the same time to create communication channels that allow local pharmacies to interact with hospital pharmacies and health facilities within which these are placed. All this would not be possible without telemedicine.

Conclusion

The patient would be continuously supported in his therapy, thanks to the use of this tool, which is not only a means that interconnects data between the various structures, but also allows the doctor to communicate with the same patient and vice versa. Does the patient have any adverse effects justified by the administration of the therapy? You can contact the doctor; using the powerful technological tools that telemedicine is developing and receive his indications. Likewise, the doctor can contact the patient at any time in case of need or warning. But what are the means that are actually already widely exploited by telemedicine and which can be improved?