Ayoub Christian Habib, El-Asmar Jose M, Abdulfattah Suhaib, El-Hajj Albert
Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.
American University of Beirut Medical School, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
Front Surg. 2022 Feb 22;9:811749. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2022.811749. eCollection 2022.
Telemedicine is the process of utilizing telecommunications and digital relay to perform, teach, or share medical knowledge. The digital era eased the incorporation of telemedicine to different areas of medical care, including the surgical care of Urologic patient mainly through telementoring, telesurgery, and telerobotics. Over the years, Telemedicine has played an integral part in a physicians' ability to provide high quality medical care to remote patients, as well as serve as an educational tool for trainee physicians, in the form of telementoring. During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has played a vital role in combatting the health implications of confinements. Challenges of telemedicine implementation include cost, ethical considerations, security, bandwidth, latency, legal, and licensure difficulties. Nevertheless, the future of telemedicine, specifically telementoring, promises several improvements and innovative advancements that aim to bridge the gap in technological divides of urologic care. In this review, we build on what is already known about telemedicine focusing specifically on aspects related to telementoring, telestration, and telesurgery. Furthermore, we discuss its historical role in healthcare with a special emphasis on current and future use in urology.
远程医疗是利用电信和数字中继来开展、教授或分享医学知识的过程。数字时代促进了远程医疗在不同医疗领域的应用，包括主要通过远程指导、远程手术和远程机器人技术为泌尿外科患者提供手术护理。多年来，远程医疗在医生为偏远地区患者提供高质量医疗服务的能力方面发挥了不可或缺的作用，并且以远程指导的形式，成为实习医生的一种教育工具。在新冠疫情期间，远程医疗在应对隔离对健康造成的影响方面发挥了至关重要的作用。远程医疗实施面临的挑战包括成本、伦理考量、安全、带宽、延迟、法律和执照发放方面的困难。尽管如此，远程医疗的未来，尤其是远程指导，有望实现多项改进和创新进展，旨在弥合泌尿外科护理技术差距。在本综述中，我们基于对远程医疗已有的了解，特别关注与远程指导、远程绘图和远程手术相关的方面。此外，我们还讨论了其在医疗保健中的历史作用，并特别强调其在泌尿外科当前和未来的应用。
