eHealth and telehealth are two terms that are used interchangeably.

Globally, healthcare is a hot topic. Countries around the world are actively investing in healthcare delivery, from enacting regulations to public funding of primary healthcare services to the actual delivery of medical care to populations. Most developed countries' GDP is said to be accounted for by healthcare delivery. In 2018, the global healthcare business was valued at $8.45 trillion dollars. According to market research, the global healthcare business will be worth more than $10 trillion by 2022. There are more than 784,000 healthcare enterprises in the United States alone, with healthcare spending estimated at $10,224 per capita.

In essence, the global quest for high-quality healthcare is a significant undertaking that spans policymaking and government finance. With the world's population continually growing, it's only natural that the global healthcare business has diversified its investments to discover new methods of providing high-quality medical treatment. These strategies outperform traditional methods, which rely primarily on hospital visits, and they also ensure that everyone has equitable access to medical care. In recent years, technological advancements have made it possible to improve the worldwide goal of adopting high-quality medical care services with equal access.

Exploring the Use of Technology in Healthcare

It is estimated that combining current technological breakthroughs with modern medicine will save $100 billion per year in operational and clinical inefficiencies. This helps to understand why telemedicine has become popular in so many countries. In China, roughly 28% of the population uses information and communication technology to access healthcare.

Telemedicine is a term used to describe healthcare delivery systems that use innovative digital systems and communication technology. It is a fast growing practice around the world. In a study published in the journal Neurology in March 2020, more than 90% of professionals rated remote healthcare delivery (Telemedicine) as an acceptable way of healthcare delivery, with about 60% rating it as extremely successful.

Many technical words have recently been established to describe new approaches to improve global healthcare delivery. In many cases, the phrases eHealth, Telemedicine, mHealth, and Telehealth have been used interchangeably, despite the fact that they all refer to various types of healthcare.

Regardless of whether "health-term" is now dominating news headlines in the business, the goals of all "health-terms" are the same: to improve the quality, efficiency, and cost of care by leveraging technological developments. In general, these terminologies play diverse roles in the patient self-management, therapy monitoring, and pharmaceutical management processes when they are used together. Today, telemedicine is likely the most well-known of these terms. Online doctor services, which have exploded in popularity since the outbreak began, are the culmination of this technology.

Differences and Coverage of Telehealth and eHealth

The World Health Assembly noted in 2018 that digital technologies have the potential to help achieve the anticipated global health goals. Member countries were urged to prioritize the creation of strategies to investigate digital technologies in order to improve healthcare delivery, promote Universal Healthcare Coverage, and advance the Sustainable Development Goals, according to a resolution passed in 2018. The 'health-term' was created in order to establish a practical plan while also perfectly capturing the scopes initially indicated.

Despite the fact that these terms are frequently used interchangeably in various publications, they are distinct and refer to separate aspects of digital healthcare delivery. The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in health-related services is referred to as eHealth. In essence, the phrase encompasses all telemedicine-related services, including electronic medication overviews, electronic health records, and electronic patient monitoring.

eHealth

eHealth is defined by the World Health Organization as "the cost-effective and secure use of information and communications technologies in support of health and healthcare-related fields, such as healthcare services, health surveillance, health literature and health technology, knowledge, and research." eHealth is defined by the European Commission as "the use of current information and communication technologies to satisfy the needs of citizens, patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare providers, and policymakers."

eHealth has grown as an umbrella, parent word spanning all terminology in digital healthcare delivery, including Telehealth, Mobile Health (mHealth), Health IT Systems, Consumer Health IT Data, and Virtual Healthcare, based on its global recognition in the drive to digitize healthcare delivery. Unlike Telehealth, the idea of eHealth is not limited to the delivery of healthcare services over the internet. Its focus, on the other hand, is on improving the efficiency of healthcare delivery across all channels, with the use of information and communication technologies.

Telehealth

Telehealth, on the other hand, refers to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to provide high-quality healthcare remotely. Telehealth is mostly used to provide healthcare services to those in rural places who do not have access to medical care via the internet. This type of healthcare delivery is used by Web Doctors' online doctor services to plan virtual consultation sessions, order clinical tests online, write prescriptions, and track patients' responses to therapy. Many publications use the terms 'telehealth' and 'telemedicine' interchangeably. Both words still describe how doctors and nurses utilize the internet and other communication channels to provide medical care and expert advice to registered patients.

Telehealth is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "the delivery of healthcare services where patients and providers are separated by distance, using ICT for the exchange of information for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries, research evaluation, and continuing education of health professionals." 'The mode of delivering public healthcare via information and communication technologies to facilitate diagnosis, consultation, treatment, education, care management, and self-management while the patient is at the originating site and the healthcare provider is at a distant site,' according to the Department of Health Care Services.

Telehealth, which includes teleradiology, telepsychiatry, telepathology, teledermatology, and remote patient monitoring, is synonymous with direct medical care. More than half of countries responding to the Telehealth initiative have a specific national telehealth policy, with over 75 percent having teleradiology and about half reporting a telepathology program, a teledermatology program, and a patent monitoring program, according to the WHO global survey report on eHealth in 2016.

While systematically increasing the overall quality of global healthcare delivery systems, eHealth enables for fast comparisons between diverse health advances and assurance interventions. Telehealth has also improved the delivery of individualized clinical healthcare over long distances.