Should the Korean government adopt the telehealth system?

2323 황현성

I think Korean government should not adopt the telehealth system. The telehealth system is a service that allows patients to receive medical treatment through medical equipment such as monitors connected to communication networks without visiting hospitals or clinics. I think telehealth care system should be a basic care. There are three reasons. First, telehealth can disrupt the healthcare system. And secondly, there can be side effects. If a doctor misdiagnoses in telehealth, it will be difficult to hold him liable. Lastly, unlike foreign countries, visiting medical treatment in Korea is not difficult, that means telehealth system is not needed.

First of all, the medical delivery system could collapse. First of all, that's why local hospitals hit. If a patient can receive medical treatment without visiting a medical institution, he or she will prefer treatment at a large hospital to a hospital close to the neighborhood. This will further exacerbate the imbalance between local hospitals and large hospitals and further intensify the competition. In addition, Korea has a medical delivery system ranging from primary to tertiary care. The primary care is for clinic, the secondary care is for local general hospitals, and the tertiary care is for senior general hospitals. In general, patients who are unable to visit primary or secondary medical institutions first and receive medical treatment in the first and second rounds can receive medical treatment at the third advanced general hospital only if they receive a medical request with their doctor's opinion. The reason for this is to systematize medical service delivery procedures and contents so that people can be healthy by efficiently utilizing limited health and medical resources. However, I oppose telehealth because it could disrupt these systems and create confusion

The second reason is the problem of side effects. For example, a patient in telehealth complained of abdominal pain and prescribed a painkiller, which turned out to be an appendix. In such cases, doctors have prescribed as appropriate as possible within the scope of telemedicine, which can lead to many side effects. In one example, the Supreme Court fined an oriental medical doctor for conducting medical activities on a patient over the phone. In April 2014, oriental medicine doctors conducted medical activities, such as conducting only phone inquiries and prescribing and delivering diet herbal medicine to patient without visiting the hospital. The patient was prescribed herbal medicine and complained of pain due to side effects. There is a risk that medical personnel will be neglected over the phone. It is difficult to determine whether the caller is the patient himself or not, and there are concerns about misuse of drugs. As such, the introduction of telemedicine reduces the quality of medical services. If the medical information that was judged and entered by the patient alone without a doctor is wrong, accurate diagnosis and prescription cannot be made and can lead to medical accidents. They say that quality judgment can be made by looking at actual patients face-to-face. According to an experiment with 16 telehealth companies in the Wall Street Journal, the courses that doctors and patients naturally have to go through were omitted from the telehealth process. Doctors basically prescribed drugs without asking questions.

Thirdly, unlike other countries, Korea has the second highest doctor density in the world. As a result, access to hospitals is excellent. There are fewer medical blind spots. I don't think it's right to insist on telehealth just because other countries do it, just to follow the flow of the world. I think we should deal with it according to the given environment and system. I do not think that what we need to do now is to increase telehealth. I think we need to increase face-to-face care. Even if the doctor density is high, hospitals may not exist in many provinces. I think the government should find these places quickly and establish a primary hospital. Also, many people argue that telehealth should be implemented for disabled people. But I think we should increase the number of visits. I don't think a doctor is just a healer. If so, AI should be left to treatment. I think doctors are people who treat and sympathize with patients' minds, and from the patient's point of view, they are sick together if the patient is sick, and they are happy together if the patient is happy. I am against telehealth because it cannot reveal the personality of these physicians.

In conclusion, my position does not mean that I restrict telehealth because it is just telehealth. If telehealth technology develops later, I think it will be possible to allow it only in urgent situations where limited visits to hospitals are not available to essential people. But even then, I don't think telehealth should ever be the basis. Since medical problems are related to patients' lives, I think we need to judge them accurately face-to-to-face. I therefore oppose telemedicine on the basis of the breakdown of the health care delivery system, hospital imbalances, side effects and the need for telehealth.