Telemedicine-medical “snack community”-PHS ecosystem: Insights into the double-edged sword role of telemedicine in clinical practice and medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

Abstract

Telemedicine has gained tremendous development during the COVID-19 pandemic. With deblocking and opening, telemedicine accelerates the evolvution of the medical “snack community” and undermines the perception of medical students and staff, which promotes the incidence of psychosocial-related disorders. Moreover, the inconsistent telemedicine adaptability between medical workers and patients aggravates the doctor–patient conflict due to the aging population and COVID-19 squeal. Telemedicine is colliding with the national healthcare system, whose synchronization with conventional medical service is crucial to coordinate the relationship among medical payment, patient privacy and qualifications of clinicians. This study puts more emphasis on the double-edged sword role of telemedicine in clinical practice and medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Overall, while telemedicine has demonstrated its utility in health care throughout the COVID pandemic, it is pretty critical to continue evaluating the efficacy and limitations of telemedicine in order to maintain equal access to medical service and high-quality medical education. A new concept as telemedicine-medical “snack community”-PHS ecosystem, where the psychological health education system and partners healthcare system with enough bandwidth, especially 5G technology, could optimize the effect of telemedicine on medical practice and education, is proposed.