This particular chapter is about internal regulation. It is a topic that is quite interesting to be reviewed. The surge of new technology and advancement of digital media has enabled online forms of communication. With the emergence of these online forms of communication, business processes have been moved to the internet. Today, most business processes have become digitized and are provided online. The healthcare industry has not been left behind in this evolution. The development of online healthcare services bore the concept of e-health. Healthcare delivery is now provided online and people do not have to meet their doctors and nurses physically in order to get this care.
Body/Overview
One area of e-health is the online pharmacies, where people purchase drugs over the internet. The prescription for these drugs and medication are also done online. The convenience of it is that distance has totally been killed and one can get treatment instructions from a doctor located miles away in another continent. These practices are enabled by the digital media forms of communication such as social media and electronic mails. The surge of online pharmacies and internet-based prescription of drugs is prevalent in the United States and Canada. Although it comes with massive benefits, the online prescription of drugs and buying medicine over the internet poses huge dangers to societies in Canada and the United States.
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There are various e-health application categories. The first category is use of technology that is distance-spanning through telemedicine and the virtual visits. Virtual visits are conducted through means like video consultations, the remote diagnostics and telehomecare (Bessell, Anderson, Silagy, Sansom & Hiller, 2003). The second category entails use of electronic documentation of the hospital data and information. This category has technologies like the electronic health records, surveillance systems and electronic prescriptions. Examples, in this case, include the expert consultations that are always conducted using video-conferencing, tele-radiology and the internet-based home speech therapy.
In the United States of America, the biggest problem has been the issue of fake online pharmacies. Most online pharmacies being operated through the internet are not licensed by the government of the U.S.A. However, they simply lie to purchasers that they are legitimate operators. The limitation faced by the patients or clients is that they rely on the digital media communication techniques, which do not offer them the opportunity to ascertain the credibility and legitimacy of these operators.
Relevance/Application
Various digital forms of communication are used in facilitating the online purchase of drugs. The common form of digital media communication that has major impact on the processes of buying drugs online is electronic mail. The online doctors as well as pharmacists communicate with clients through e-mails. The client simply describes his health condition in an e-mail text and receives a feedback regarding the prognosis and diagnosis of the information given and decision on the most likely type of sickness. Therefore, the online doctor prescribes specific drugs for the sick client through the e-mail communication. Thereafter, the client gets in contact with an online pharmacy, where he or she buys drugs. This practice has become the cause of major societal health problems and a high number of deaths has been reported in the United States of America and Canada.
It is vital to understand the fact that digital media forms of communication have the limitation of lack of physical meeting and engagement between the conversing parties. Communication done through digital media mechanisms is basically done over the internet. This particular factor is the source of the social problems associated with buying drugs from the online pharmacies in both the United States of America and Canada. There is huge amount of crucial information that is missed by both the patient and the online pharmacists when drugs are bought over the internet. The crucial information that is always missed is the source of the societal problems that are linked to buying drugs from the online pharmacies in Canada and United States.
Conclusion
In Canada, the biggest problem of buying from the online pharmacies is the deaths witnessed as a result of fake drugs. There has been a surge of fake online pharmacies leading to a public outcry. Buyers are hoodwinked into purchasing fake medicine simply packaged in misleading labels. The limitation of e-health, which uses the digital media communication techniques, is that the patient or client has no chance of physically verifying the veracity and legitimacy of the products being offered (Spain, Siegel & Ramsey, 2001). Therefore, buyers simply purchase what they are given with the only information to consider being the words of the online pharmacist.
References
Bessell, T. L., Anderson, J. N., Silagy, C. A., Sansom, L. N., & Hiller, J. E. (2003). Surfing, self-medicating and safety: buying non-prescription and complementary medicines via the internet. Quality and Safety in Health Care , 12 (2), 88-92.
Fung, C. H., Woo, H. E., & Asch, S. M. (2004, February). Controversies and legal issues of prescribing and dispensing medications using the Internet. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 188-194). Elsevier.
Ivanitskaya, L., & Brookins-Fisher, J. (2010). Dirt cheap and without prescription: how susceptible are young US consumers to purchasing drugs from rogue internet pharmacies?. Journal of medical Internet research , 12 (2).
Mackey, T. K., Aung, P., & Liang, B. A. (2015). Illicit Internet availability of drugs subject to recall and patient safety consequences. International journal of clinical pharmacy , 37 (6), 1076.
Orizio, G., Merla, A., Schulz, P. J., & Gelatti, U. (2011). Quality of online pharmacies and websites selling prescription drugs: a systematic review. Journal of medical Internet research , 13 (3).
