Discussion board-extra credit
Telehealth is the process whereby people use electronic devices e.g. laptops and mobile phones to get an opportunity to receive healthcare services and control health care activities for a given period. These include new scientific skills developed through the modernized machines that people access at the comfort of their houses or the ones that doctors use in the hospitals to manage our health care services.
Many healthcare facilities, especially in this COVID 19 pandemic period, have an online platform as a communication interface between doctors and patients. As a benefit, this has saved the time used by both the patients and nurses while travelling to and from the healthcare facility. This online platform has also led to quick intervention to a patient’s illness since a patient can upload his disease symptoms through a mobile device and doctors can work it out within the shortest time possible. Doctors administer health care services to a wide geographical area in comparison to the manual treatment whereby patients have to move from further places to the more costly hospital. Telehealth also has greatly reduced the rates at which people are sent to the hospital for treatment for a given period. Patients can also express their illnesses and problems freely through telehealth unlike manually whereby they may fear to tell the nurses some of their problems. With the current pandemic having social distancing as a key demand, telehealth has greatly decreased doctor-patient contact since information can be digitally transmitted hence being more reliable.
On the contrast, the advanced technology may be too complex for the patients to understand hence may vto be less convenient to them. Furthermore, there may be technical issues with the new machines under usage. This may alter the results of a patient’s diagnosis hence leading to serious issues with the patient’s health. Equipment malfunction may also slow down patient treatment for example doctors rely on them to store blood samples and also take X-rays hence failure leads to a halt in the services. The nurses might find it hard taking in the new technology advancement since it requires new training skills hence time-consuming. The clients may also have a feeling that telehealth platforms may show less care to them since there is no face to face conversation with the doctors.
There are many ethical considerations when conducting telehealth as described by different researchers. Firstly, a patient’s privacy should be considered hence his data should be confidential with zero disclosure to the unconcerned people. Patients should all be equally treated with zero discrimination hence fairness applied. The clients should not be exploited based on their educational level or even their net wealth. All clients should be able to access healthcare services without delay or any form of abuse. Telehealth services of a given facility should also comply with the local regulations and public interests to be in full ethical consideration. The patients should receive high-quality services accompanied by sympathy from the health care administrative personnel. Telehealth facility services should be more helpful and advantageous to the patients and it should expose them to as least amount of risks as possible.
References
Stowe, S., & Harding, S. (2010). Telecare, telehealth and telemedicine. European Geriatric Medicine, 1(3), 193-197.
Hendy, J., Chrysanthaki, T., Barlow, J., Knapp, M., Rogers, A., Sanders, C., … & Newman, S. (2012). An organisational analysis of the implementation of telecare and telehealth: the whole systems demonstrator. BMC health services research, 12(1), 403.
Sanders, C., Rogers, A., Bowen, R., Bower, P., Hirani, S., Cartwright, M., … & Chrysanthaki, T. (2012). Exploring barriers to participation and adoption of telehealth and telecare within the Whole System Demonstrator trial: a qualitative study. BMC health services research, 12(1), 220.