Telemedicine Pre and Post Covid-19: Lessons for Commercialisation Based on Previous Use Cases

George (Gyoergy) Ferenczi; Abdun Naser Mahmood; Ralf Konrad Bergmann

doi:10.29086/JISfTeH.8.e8

George (Gyoergy) Ferenczi La Trobe University, Melbourne,Victoria, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6441-9439
Abdun Naser Mahmood La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7769-3384
Ralf Konrad Bergmann Semmelweis University, Department of Biophysics and Radiobiology, Budapest, Hungary; Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer research, Dresden, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-4286

DOI: https://doi.org/10.29086/JISfTeH.8.e8

Keywords: COVID-19, telemedicine, health system, respiratory diagnostics, cardiology

Abstract

Telemedicine used to be slow, difficult, expensive and widely neglected by doctors and patients. COVID-19 changed everything; telemedicine is entering a period of rapid economic and business growth. This paper discusses the reasons for change in telemedicine over the last 20 years, through real-life medical technology projects, telemetry, ehealth and health IT. Our methods are based on the analysis of telemedicine projects we have implemented and characteristic historical data. The results of our investigation demonstrate a clear increase of significance in telemedicine in the present and near future. We envision the evolution of mobile phones to personal telehealth monitors. Prior to COVID-19, market penetration and economic factors of telemedicine evolved slowly and in an uneven manner on a global scale. Many of the projects remained active only as long as the grant or corporate or national support was provided. The age of novel globally spreading infectious diseases, exemplified by COVID-19, has created an unusual, different setting. Recent pandemics and epidemics have changed global economics significantly and generated a new motivation and a new market with a projected trillion-dollar market value. Post COVID-19, regular and periodic epidemics and pandemics are expected to continue to occur. This will generate an enormous global market for isolated high-tech services, including telemedicine and telemetry.

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Author Biographies

Abdun Naser Mahmood, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Dr. Abdun Mahmood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and IT, La Trobe University. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He also has a MSc (Research) degree in computer science and

the B.Sc. degree in applied physics and electronics. He has been working as an academic in Computer Science since 1999. Prior

to joining La Trobe University, Dr. Mahmood worked at RMIT University and University of New South Wales. His research interests include application of data mining and machine learning techniques, scalable network traffic analysis, and anomaly detection.

Ralf Konrad Bergmann, Semmelweis University, Department of Biophysics and Radiobiology, Budapest, Hungary; Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer research, Dresden, Germany

Dr. Ralf Bergmann is a Professor of Molecular and Preclinical Imaging in the Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology, Semmelweis University Budapest, Hungary and Guest Scientist at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany. He received his PhD from The Martin-Luther University Halle, Germany. He also finished a postdoc qualification as Radiochemist (B.Sc.), Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. He has been working as Biochemist and Radiopharmacologist in R&D of diagnostic and therapeutic Radiopharmaceuticals in the Research Center Dresden since 1981. His research interest includes preclinical imaging and image analysis with PET, SPECT, CT, MRI, US OI and theranostics in cancer.

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