Remote medical consultations for patients: what has changed in Russia in 20 years

Abstract

Introduction. 2020 has sparked explosive growth in telemedicine, especially remote patient consultation and remote patient monitoring techniques. Materials and methods. The authors analyzed data from 169 articles from Pubmed and 47 articles from Elibrary.ru, 117 analytical reviews of Internet resources, Federal Laws on the keywords «remote patient consultation», «mobile applications for patients», «telemedicine», «pandemic». For this publication, 49 publications were selected, as well as the authors' own opinions and experiences. Results. Today remote consulting in Russia is used in the case of an initial consultation – a preventive appointment, referral to clinics, obtaining a second medical opinion with the possibility of prescribing additional examinations. Over the past 20 years, there has been an active growth in the development of remote consultations, long-term monitoring of patients' health, the introduction of mobile applications for monitoring vital signs of the body. An important point is the legal regulation of the provisions on the use of telemedicine technologies, however, it remains imperfect and requires improvement. The COVID pandemic has become a driver for the development of TM technologies in the state healthcare system. Conclusions. TM has transformed from conventional consultations to long-term (continuous) monitoring of health status using medical devices, which can be considered one of the most promising new areas with clinical efficacy. TM technologies are gradually becoming a familiar tool in clinical practice and may become routine for doctors and patients even after the end of the pandemic.