Telemedicine in modern conditions: the attitude of society and the vector of development

The intensive development of information technology and the external challenges, primarily the coronavirus pandemic, have caused a revision of attitudes toward telemedicine. The article is devoted to the study of problems concerning the development of Russian telemedicine, analysis of existing trends and the possibilities of its application, taking into account the development of communication technology and the legal field. Research on this issue is connected, on the one hand, with analyzing modern capabilities of telemedicine technologies and the need for their application in connection with the complex epidemiological situation in a number of Russia’s regions, on the other hand, with the assessment of the level of trust in telemedicine on the part of end users: who, how, when and where can use telemedicine services. The object of our research is telemedicine technology, the subject is the dynamics of perception of new forms of medical services by Russian society. We use a classical approach to studying the problems under consideration: at the first stage, we conduct a comprehensive desk study and analyze secondary information; at the second stage, we collect primary data: on the basis of the developed tools, we conduct an exploratory study of the attitude of Russian society toward telemedicine. The uniqueness and novelty of our findings are due to the comparison of the data concerning the attitude of Russians toward telemedicine, obtained before the outbreak of the pandemic, with the data obtained at the stage of a significant reduction in the incidence of COVID-19 in regions that have become “pilot” ones in the use of telemedicine technologies in primary care in the midst of the epidemic. During data collection and analysis, we applied statistical, mathematical and sociological methods, including content analysis to study legal issues of the possibility of using telemedicine technologies. The study has revealed the main reasons for Russians’ distrust of telemedicine, as well as possible ways and areas of its application in the future to provide medical care to the population. The results obtained can be used to study the application of telemedicine in Russia in the system of training and retraining of medical personnel, as well as by health care organizers, lawyers and other specialists who deal with the application of telemedicine technologies, including at the level of legislative and executive authorities.