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Volume 13 Issue 1 (January) 2024

Original Articles

Evaluation of the knowledge, perception, and willingness towards telemedicine among healthcare workers in Mumbai
Shivkumar R. Kolle, Sarah Al Hinnawi,Rajesh B. Sukhdeve,Sachin S. Sonawane

Introduction/Background: Telemedicine or telehealth is a form of remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology. After COVID Pandemic this trend of using technology is going to stay, and India also has been caught up in this swell of change in the healthcare environment, and both the government and private sectors are vigorously taking steps by promoting innovations, developing new applications and platforms, making policy changes, ensuring education, and conducting advocacy activities. Material & Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional structured questionnaire-based survey was conducted over a two-month period among healthcare workers in tertiary care center and private practitioners in a Western suburb in a city in Maharashtra, India to determine the knowledge, perception, and willingness of telemedicine. There were 100 doctors (41 male and 59 female) who agreed to fill a pre-validated self-administered questionnaire that was distributed through Google Forms.Results: Among the 100 respondents,59% were female. 56% were aged less than thirty years and 44% were aged between thirty to fifty years. The majority of the respondents were from the clinical branches. 32% of the respondents were resident trainee doctors followed by Interns forming 20%. 92% of the respondents had less than 10 years of experience. About 51% had already done telemedicine consultation in the past. 72% of the total population reported good knowledge of telemedicine including its applications. However, only 30% were familiar with the telemedicine guidelines. 44% of them had heard about telemedicine from their hospital or workplace and 36% from their colleagues. According to professional designation, the majority of the resident trainee doctors had good knowledge (33.33%), good perception (32.22%) and good willingness (30.76%) towards Telemedicine. Conclusion: Telemedicine can be an efficient and beneficial conduit between a patient and a doctor with an established ongoing relationship. The doctors should ensure that their use of telemedicine is compliant with the Telemedicine Guidelines, the regulations laid down by the National Medical Commission and as well as the Information Technology Act.

 
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