The Use of Telehealth in the Treatment of HIV-AIDS

Abstract

The use of telehealth has increased during the last few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, since all the health systems were forced to limit the services offered to those who sought help, which significantly affected the treatment of every illness that was not related to said sickness (Doraiswamyet al., 2020). This also affected the services provided to people who live with HIV (PVVIH, according to term in Spanish) and it started the use of telehealth in several healthcare offers, which is understood as the remote healthcare services provided through telecommunications technology in order to help patients (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2022). The services that telehealth encases are psychoeducation, remote monitoring of medical conditions, psychological and psychiatric services, medical examinations through videoconferences and the review of medical records, among other activities that clinical personnel might be able to cover with the use of technology. Telehealth also meets the goal of diminishing the gap in the medical services provided to patients who receive attention regarding diverse mental, physical and psychological health problems. The evidence suggests that the results obtained through this modality are comparable with the services offered in an in-person appointment (Osenbach et al., 2013), they present drop-out rates similar to the face-to-face modality and acceptable levels of satisfaction (Chipps et al., 2020). Some of the ways in which telehealth has been used in ambulatory treatment centers are through detection and treatment programs based on computing equipment, phone apps, phone therapy and, recently, through clinical videoconferences (Fisher et al., 2021; Lai et al., 2020). The term “clinical videoconference” refers to an active videoconference held between a health service provider and a patient, with purposes that range between brief interventions to providing prescriptions and the management of medication (Lustgarten et al., 2020). The use of telehealth in the context of HIV has increased both the timely manner and the quality of the medical services, since it reduces the long commutes The Use of Telehealth in the Treatment of HIV-AIDS