Online Doctor Services and Urinary Tract Infections
How would you like to treat a recurring UTI infection? or rather, who would you like to discuss it with? Questions like these and many more created a need to develop an independent platform where patients can confidently relate with and discuss it with a medical professional. Most cases of urinary tract infections constitute no serious threat to normal living and require no form of hospitalization. Health conditions such as UTI, seasonal allergies, flu, and erectile dysfunction now contributes a significant part of the global minor illnesses burden. In the actual sense, many of these conditions are self-limiting and do not necessarily require an in-person hospital appointment with a doctor.
Online doctor services are specially designed to provide remote care for patients with these conditions. Also referred to as Telemedicine, an online doctor service integrates advanced technology with medical care. By using recent innovations in a two-way audio-visual communication system and a digital healthcare solution, online doctors can reach out to a pool of registered patients. By consulting a medical professional remotely, many patients can report the presence of their symptoms, answer real-time questions on disease severity, secure an online prescription, and provide feedback to the online doctor.
In telemedicine, the patient-doctor interface is designed to mimic the conventional in-person hospital appointment. However, this form of patient-centered care is remotely delivered and completely excludes the need for a physical meet between a patient and a team of doctors. This healthcare delivery system has been proven to be effective in the management of minor illness that requires no direct professional supervision. Medics can plan an intervention plan remotely, and the patient only adopts the therapy recommendations.
Why Consider an Online Doctor Service for the Management of UTI
Modern human medicine sure has many approaches to treating a case presentation of urinary tract infections. Antibiotics are the mainstay of therapy. Depending on disease severity and the risk level for relapse o reinfection, a medical practitioner might decide to combine the aggressive use of antibiotics with a Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) plan. The rationale for this approach is to directly supervise medication use as an effective antibiotic therapy is instituted.
Over the years, the trend of treatment of urinary tract infections has changed steadily. Some reputable clinical journals have published some reviews that suggest that many patients with a confirmed UTI diagnosis have one point in time considered self-medicating. In essence, many women with this condition now freely opt for self-prescribed management options. This new trend is unconnected with the fact that many UTI patients feel uncomfortable describing ad there or discussing their infections with a doctor in a hospital appointment setting.
A publication of the British Medical Journal once focused on determining whether women with urethral syndrome can be distinguished from those with urinary tract infection by case notes, psychiatric state, and clinical symptoms. Using a participant pool of 102 women with either UTI or urethral syndrome, the researchers concluded that these patients showed transient high levels of distress. With treatment, the distress levels were resolved with physical symptoms. Since patients with UTI are vulnerable to distress and an altered feeling of self-worth, they might find it difficult to confide in or discuss their symptoms with a doctor in an in-person hospital appointment.
Telemedicine was specifically designed to solve this problem. Some online doctor services have plans that allow patients to set an online consultation anonymously. Patients can simply register for this plan, send a list of disease presentations, and receive counseling points from the online doctor. Since online doctors are required by State laws to ensure patients’ identity protection, the information shared over the digital network of an Online Healthcare Service Provider remains secured. Patients with urinary tract diseases and erectile dysfunction can then discuss comfortably with a medical professional.
Getting an Online Prescription for UTI
As a two-way remote interface between the patient and the online doctor, an important feature of telemedicine is the patients’ supervised therapy. On registration, a patient can simply supply the personal health data necessary for a complete evaluation. In the case of urinary tract infection, the online might require additional data needed as might be needed to make an informed diagnosis. Patients can also anonymously send in audio-visual prompts to describe structural malformations noticed in the urinary tracts.
This wave of feedback between both parties allows the online doctor to determine the type of clinical intervention remotely initiated. In cases where further evaluation is needed, the online doctor can order a urinalysis or a microbial culture and sensitivity tests to determine disease pathology and select the best treatment regimen possible. UTI cases, many times, require drug therapy with antibiotics. An online doctor is licensed to remotely generate an online prescription and send the same to a pharmacy of the patient’s choice. Online prescriptions generated in this method are transmitted over a secure channel to a registered pharmacy for filling.
Patients placed on drug therapy can easily procure these medications and start therapy immediately. The type of drugs that can be remotely prescribed is subject to State laws guiding telemedicine and e-prescription. In the case of UTI, many State laws have provisions that mandate a responsible use of antibiotics by the online doctor. This is in line with the global healthcare drive to curb the menace of microbial resistance. It is also necessary that UTI patients be placed on a patient monitoring plan. This might be necessary to evaluate the pattern of drug action, patient’s responsiveness to selected drugs, and the need to modify the online prescription.
The point is that the features available for UTI management depend on the services offered by the selected online healthcare service provider. However, telemedicine is rapidly evolving to capture all the important digital features needed to reach a large population at once and monitor therapy progression.
