Abstract: COVID-19 is a public health emergency of international concern. Ensuring primary healthcare during this pandemic appeared to be a great challenge. Primary healthcare services are being disrupted due to lockdown, lack of protective gears and hospital facilities, risk of infection spread to non-COVID patients and health professionals. People with acute and chronic ailments including diabetes, pregnancy, obesity, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health conditions are in trouble. In this article, the challenges in primary healthcare in developing countries during COVID-19 pandemic have been analyzed and the role of telemedicine in addressing these challenges has been discussed. Telemedicine can play an important role in this pandemic by minimizing virus spread, utilizing the time of healthcare professionals effectively and in alleviating mental health issues.

Student founders working on a start-up the past 2 years have created a 30-second home based AI brain health evaluation utilizing advanced imaging and neural analysis for non-invasive early disease detection. Personalized and tailored, this new gaze tracking system is non-invasive, has remote capabilities, and costs less - bringing remote detection to more providers and more patients via tele-ophthalmology. Identifying ocular biomarkers can point to several serious conditions, including Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The pandemic spurred a rapid uptake of telemedicine by sidelining or overcoming the various challenges of implementing remote patient-care solutions, identified in numerous studies. Although the pandemic was the major factor driving adoption of telemedicine and telehealth, there are still several barriers that health systems need to address. However, health care administrators can rely on this modality of care as evidence largely shows that it is safe, effective, and widely accepted. This technical report gives a broad-strokes update on the development of telemedicine after the COVID pandemic in Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia—the four countries that made the greatest strides in the field of telemedicine and telehealth in Latin America, identifying which barriers still persist to its full integration into the health system. Spanish Language Translation La pandemia alentó la rápida adopción de la telemedicina dejando de lado o superando varios de los desafíos que implica la implementación de las soluciones de atención remota de pacientes, identificados en numerosas investigaciones. Si la pandemia fue el gran impulsor para la adopción de la telemedicina y la telesalud, todavía quedan varias barreras que los sistemas de salud deben abordar; sin embargo, los administradores de atención médica pueden confiar en la modalidad, ya que la evidencia muestra en gran medida que es segura, eficaz y ampliamente aceptada. El presente reporte técnico ofrece un panorama general del desarrollo de la telemedicina con posterioridad a la pandemia de COVID-19 en Chile, Brasil, Colombia y Argentina, cuatro de los países que más avances hicieron en el campo de la telemedicina y la telesalud en América Latina, identificando cuáles fueron las barreras que todavía persisten para su integración completa al sistema de salud.