Nadeem Iqbal, Mohsin Ali, Tooba Ali, Muhammad Jahangir Iftikhar, Manpreet Singh Kala, Sumeet Kumar, Aisha Hasan, Sajid Iqbal and Ali Mohsin Choudhry
Since the start of the COVID-19 situation, social distancing has been adopted globally which has promoted the use of telemedicine technology. It is a virtual relationship between doctors and patients, so it requires the expectations of patients and physicians to be addressed. Patients’ privacy, maintaining safe communication and distance learning are equally important for running successful telemedicine programs. Other issues include access to this technology, its acceptability and the level of health literacy. In developing countries patients’ understanding of their disease and the longterm management is already lacking even in the ideal circumstances. When it comes to telemedicine interactions it becomes an even more difficult task. All these obstacles need attention in order to address patients’ concerns and maintain their satisfaction with the modality of telemedicine. Even developed world countries are learning with the passage of time as to how to deal with various obstacles in patient care in the current pandemic. A risk stratification approach is of paramount importance for any hospital department to carry on with uninterrupted and safe delivery of urological consultation services and local procedures. In this article we review recent telemedicine reports, outline the challenges faced by both healthcare providers and patients, and suggest best practices to overcome these challenges.