Today’s technology continuously paves the way for industries to advance and to be more efficient for consumer use. For instance, videoconferencing has proven to be a helpful tool for many companies, including health-care institutions and facilities. Being able to communicate despite the distance has made the delivery of health-care services more efficient in many ways, yielding more favorable results and more satisfied patients.
Another health-care aspect that is sure to benefit from videoconferencing is psychological therapies and addiction counseling. Dealing with drug and alcohol problems can be a difficult journey not just for the patient but also for the health-care provider. But with the help of technology, it makes meetings much easier and treatments more effective.
Videoconferencing Saves You Time and Travel Costs
For addiction counselors, it is important to personally meet their clients to thoroughly assess and evaluate their health and their addiction. These sessions not only cost both parties their time but also contributes to their travel expense.
However, such costs can be minimized or even eliminated with the help of videoconferencing. Patients and counselors only need to set up videoconferencing equipment at their own offices or homes, and they can already carry on their counseling session for the day. This is especially helpful for patients who live in far-flung areas, as they won’t have to travel so far to get therapy.
Videoconferencing allows you to communicate with specialists.
Aside from the psychological effects, drug and substance addiction hugely affects the body, which is why addiction counselors refer to and coordinate with other medical specialists to provide holistic care to their patients among other effective detox programs. However, the scenario of failing to get an appointment with a medical specialist due to his busy schedule just hits people every time—because it happens to a lot of people.
With videoconferencing, both counselor and patient can now communicate with medical specialists without having to visit them personally. Teleconference breaks geographical restrictions in health care, allowing a more immediate and a more effective treatment.
Videoconferencing Improves Emergency Care
Many studies show that drug and substance addiction can lead patients to resort to violent and aggressive behaviors, which poses a threat not only to themselves but also to people around them. This usually happens when patients skip their medications and counseling sessions. These patients require constant guidance and care, which may be challenging to achieve due to the distance and time involved.
However, emergency situations such as these can be minimized when patients have easy access to their addiction counselors through videoconferencing applications. This can also help the patient’s health-care team to hold emergency meetings when need be. This lessens the time spent just to gather every member of the medical team and allows them to deliver emergency care more promptly.
Videoconferencing Promotes More Secure Data Management
As with all patient information, confidentiality is the utmost priority when it comes to addiction counseling. With today’s digitized era, patient privacy is easily upheld since all data can easily be secure and protected with the right web conferencing equipment and software.
Telecommunication also makes it easier for health-care providers and addiction counselors to properly record and obtain patient data, as videoconferencing provides an option to record a certain meeting and make it accessible for the personnel involved anytime. The right web conferencing solution upholds strict guidelines to ensure that all information shared will remain between the communicating parties.
Videoconferencing has truly gone from simply being a means to bring people together despite the distance, to being an essential tool that improves the health and overall lives of conflicted individuals. People can only look forward to more technological advancements in the future and how they will shape our lives.