In extreme circumstances such as pandemics, the presence of patients in hospital emergency
departments becomes untenable. Healthcare professionals and organizations worldwide are
leaning on technology as a crucial ally to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. This article
focuses on the positive impact of telemedicine for helping service provision, from enabling
virtual triage to mitigating the negative psychological effects of social isolation. The authors
discuss the challenges and opportunities to telemedicine practices.
IMPACT
This article explains how telemedicine and other e-healthcare technologies can benefit people,
medical staff and healthcare systems. One of the main challenges for telemedicine in many
countries is the lack of regulations. The authors call on policy-makers to facilitate wider
implementation of e-healthcare technologies, while considering issues of inclusiveness,
privacy and data protection. The article informs managers about the use of new
technologies. Examples are provided of e-healthcare technologies implemented during the
COVID-19 pandemic, for example in terms of healthcare capacity and providing support to
people affected by quarantine.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Public Money and Management on 09 Apr 2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2020.1748855