The Institute of Health Care improvement stated that telehealth could be very impactful with meeting the triple aim needs of the healthcare system by improving the health of the population and providing accessibility and reliability with practice care and decreasing the costs of healthcare to the population. Telehealth is defined as being able to use information electronically with telecommunications technologies to provide long-distance clinical care to a patient, provide, continue and maintain patient health-related education and manage health administrative services and public health (Alexander, Hoy, & Frith, 2019).
The digital era has made it easy to integrate stored computerized information and transmit it through voice and video data at such a high speed to provide quick access care to local and remote areas lacking professional services. It has enabled the use of telehealth services such as remote access to patient information, videoconferencing, remote monitoring. It has also provided real-time applications with the care provided using live video synchronous conferencing. The information is recorded and documented immediately. It can also be stored and forwarded to the consulting physician later, such as with medical visits, or x-rays or photos of wounds. There is also the use of remote patient monitoring (RPM). This is the use of medical equipment’s at home and transmitted to the provider. And also, the mobile health (mHealth). This is using mobile technologies like smart phones, personal digital assistants, tablets (PDAs) to transmit information (Alexander, Hoy, & Frith, 2019). Successful implementation of digital health technology will be imperative for improving patient outcomes and ensuring financial stability for health care practices (American Medical Association. (2022). This electronic communication means the use of interactive telecommunications equipment that includes, at a minimum, audio and video equipment. Telemedicine is viewed as a cost-effective alternative to the more traditional face-to-face way of providing medical care (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), (2021)
Patient privacy and security is one of the biggest concerns in the healthcare system. The system faces a lot of issues with providing and protecting patient privacy and patients have a right to protect their privacy. All means of communication for the patient care using telehealth must be compliant with the policies and standards of care and with the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The use of technology for older adult patients may create stress because they do not know how to use it. So, providers expecting them to use it and create stress to them is unethical. With telecommunications, there are issues with network downtime, wrong documentations, issues of passwords failures or resets. Sometimes the video and audio may not be clear and cause delays and frustrations. The portability of licensure for providers across several states is still an issue with telehealth. There is movement towards providing licensure across the Unites States for providers using telehealth (Alexander, Hoy, & Frith, 2019).
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