Challenges and Opportunities of Using Telemedicine During Covid-19 Epidemic: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Covid-19 pandemic is spreading rapidly around the world. Given the high risk of transmission of the disease in order to curb the effects of the epidemic, governments and health care organizations must maximize the capacity of medical care, protective equipment and preventive measures. Therefore, in this study, the challenges and recommendations for the use and development of telemedicine technologies during the Covid-19 epidemic were examined. Material and Methods: A systematic review of English-language studies was conducted by searching for keywords in the authoritative scientific databases. Studies related to the challenges and recommendations of telemedicine at the time of the Covid-19 epidemic were considered as inclusion criteria. Titles and abstracts were screened independently based on eligibility criteria. Complete texts were then retrieved and screened independently based on eligibility criteria. The checklist was used to extract data such as study title, first author name, year of publication, country, challenges and telemedicine recommendations during the Covid-19 epidemic. Results: In this study, the existing challenges and recommendations for the use and development of telemedicine technologies were examined. Challenges studied in the studies were included three categories of human, managerial and technical challenges. Human factors, management factors and technical factors Conclusion: The results showed that today human and managerial challenges play a more fundamental and important role than technical challenges. In addition, Covid-19 emergencies are effective in addressing telemedicine challenges, and efforts are underway to expand telemedicine more rapidly as a response to managing and controlling the outbreak of Covid-19 epidemics.