Adoption of Telemedicine in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the rest of GCC and Middle Eastern countries are happening in a rapid pace.

With a solid health system in place and increased focus on public health and wellbeing, the governments and private sector healthcare providers are investing heavily in tele-health, remote diagnosis and allied solutions.

Is Telemedicine here yet?
Just as the stethoscope was initially greeted with some skepticism for its effectiveness as a diagnostic tool, many stakeholders are reluctant to go too far down the virtual health path. Some cite cost or low demand as reasons. Others are uncertain about the regulatory and compliance environment for telehealth. Believe it or not, virtual health is now a solution whose time has come.

The world is ready for Tele-Health, aren’t you?
According to a recent tele-health adoption study commissioned by Vidyo, Inc., over 75% of participants, who include nurses, physicians, healthcare administrators, and health IT professionals, said that they are currently using, or in near future plan to use telehealth solutions. That’s really promising, given the advantages that live video, remote patient monitoring, and mobile health offer to both patients and providers.

Studies show that virtual health could generate trillions of worth business value worldwide and experts point to virtual health as one of the most efficient and effective means of confronting social determinants of health obstacles because it breaks down barriers to accessing physical care.

So what are your reasons for not going for tele-health or telemedicine solutions?
Despite an awareness of the specific benefits virtual health can provide, the most enthusiastic virtual health adopter can be stymied by a number of barriers. According to the Vidyo study the primary reasons why providers are wary of adopting virtual health are:

• Not enough demand to justify the expense
• Cost of implementation and complexity
• Lack of state or national policies and reimbursement
• Concerns about privacy and HIPAA compliance
• Lack of clinical staffing
• Infrastructure issues
• Integrations with electronic health records (EHR)