Telehealth is the application of digital information and communication technologies such as mobile devices and computers to remotely provide or access healthcare services and manage a person’s health care. In other words, it is the delivery of health care, health information services and health education where both the providers and patients are separated by distance. In telehealth, variety of ICT tools such as mobile phone, app or a website are employed for the exchange of information to enable diagnosis and treatments of illnesses or injuries. In addition to treatment, the ICT tools are applied in research, evaluation and in supporting education continuation among health professionals (Catalyst, 2018). A patient can for example use a mobile phone or computer to upload medications, food logs, blood sugar level and dosing for review by a healthcare professional who reverts electronically. The study presents a persuasion paper that explores effectiveness of telehealth in healthcare delivery.
Effectiveness of Telehealth
Remote Monitoring
Telehealth has enabled application of a variety of technologies to monitor patient’s health remotely ultimately leading to increased effectiveness in health care delivery. Mobile apps or other web based technologies are currently being used in the health care sector to upload information such as blood glucose readings to a nurse or a doctor who reviews and responds to the patient remotely (Wosik et al., 2020). New devices have been created to measure and wirelessly transmit data such as blood glucose or blood pressure to health care practitioners. There are other wearable gadgets that record and transmit information automatically such as heart rate, sleep patterns, gait, tremors and physical activity (Catalyst, 2018). New home monitoring devices are being used in care homes for older people or patients with dementia to detect even slight changes in normal activities such as falls. Remote patient monitoring technologies remind patients to carryout out critical lifesaving activities such as weighing themselves or taking their heart rates and blood glucose levels and then transmit the data to their physicians. Telehealth allow transmission of vital signs such as respiratory rates, oxygen levels and cardiac stats to care practitioners. Remote monitoring via the mentioned information technology devices enable health care professionals to attend to multiple patients within a short span leading to increased effectiveness. Remote patient monitoring brings about effectiveness due to earlier detection of complications and identification of patients who require medical attention before in-person appointments (Wosik et al., 2020). In addition, telehealth has enabled efficient management of chronic conditions ultimately leading to high quality care, improved outcomes and significantly reduced costs. According to a study entitled, Cardiac Implantable Electronic Device (CIED), patients who had been subjected to remote monitoring reported higher rate of survival than patients without the monitoring devices ( Kruse et al., 2017) . Remote monitoring therefore leads to increased access to healthcare services, improved patient satisfaction and reduction in healthcare costs.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Doctors talking to doctors
Doctors have mastered the art of leveraging on the capabilities of telehealth to offer improved care for their patients. Virtual consultation is an example of a telehealth platform that gives primary care doctors an opportunity to liaise and get input from specialists when the physicians have questions about a patient’s diagnosis or treatment. Through telehealth ICT tools, primary care doctors send patient data such as test results, x-rays, history or exam notes to the specialist for review (Rawashdeh et al., 2018). The specialists in turn either reverts electronically or holds a virtual appointment with the patient at the primary doctor’s office or may request an in-person or face to face meeting. The virtual consultations are integral in preventing unnecessary in person-referrals to specialists. Moreover, the consultations brought about by doctor-to-doctor discourses reduce wait times for specialists input and helps patients avoid unnecessary travels leading to increased effectiveness due to improved patient health outcomes
Telehealth addresses shortage of primary care physicians and scarcity of specialists
Through telehealth, smaller and less resourced hospitals are able to gain access to larger regional and specialist based care facilities via developed ICT tools. Admittedly, telehealth innovations deliver solutions to problems such as hard to reach populations and limited access to care which are emanate from shortage of physicians (Rawashdeh et al., 2018). A study entitled MUSC on the usage of tele-hospitalists indicated that telehealth is efficiently being implemented to treat populations of inmates in prisons as well as being utilized in underserved urban areas and rural communities to bolster healthcare delivery.
Summary
Telehealth has increased the effectiveness of healthcare delivery through patient remote monitoring. Smart surveillance cameras and wearable gadgets are used with patients such as elderly clients to notify physicians about changes in activity, lack of movement or falls. Remote monitoring brings about effectiveness by enabling cost reduction, helping primary care doctors’ tailor make patient treatment according to service availability and client choices. Also, remote monitoring enable older individuals to stay longer in their homes without necessity for being domiciled in care homes. Telehealth has enabled close coordination between doctors through virtual consultation. Specialists are given a platform to contribute to patient diagnosis or treatment. Accessibility has increased through telehealth since smaller and less resourced hospitals can reach specialists based in larger care facilities. Hard to reach populations in underserved urban areas and rural regions can seamlessly receive health care courtesy of telehealth technologies.
References
Catalyst, N. E. J. M. (2018). What is telehealth?. NEJM Catalyst , 4 (1).
Kruse, C. S., Krowski, N., Rodriguez, B., Tran, L., Vela, J., & Brooks, M. (2017). Telehealth and patient satisfaction: a systematic review and narrative analysis. BMJ open , 7 (8), e016242.
Rawashdeh, M., Zamil, M. G. A., Hossain, M. S., Samarah, S., Amin, S. U., & Muhammad, G. (2018). Reliable service delivery in Tele-health care systems. Journal of Network and Computer Applications , 115 , 86-93.
Wosik, J., Fudim, M., Cameron, B., Gellad, Z. F., Cho, A., Phinney, D., ... & Katz, J. N. (2020). Telehealth Transformation: COVID-19 and the rise of Virtual Care. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , 27 (6), 957-962.
